President Donald Trump, irritated at being impeached for a second time, has told people to stop paying Rudy Giuliani's legal fees, a person familiar with the matter tells CNN, though aides were not clear if the President was serious about his instructions given he's lashing out at nearly everyone after the day's events.
Trump became the first president in US history to be impeached twice on Wednesday, one week after a mob stormed the US Capitol following a speech by the President that galvanized his supporters to fight against the counting of the electoral votes that would affirm President-elect Joe Biden's win. The insurrection left five people dead, including one Capitol Police officer, and has left the nation's capital and state capitols around the country preparing for potential violence as Biden is set to be inaugurated next week.
Trump has been blaming his longtime personal attorney and many others for the predicament he now finds himself in, though he has not accepted any responsibility in public or in private, people familiar with his reaction told CNN. Giuliani is still expected to play a role in Trump's impeachment defense but has been left out of most conversations thus far.
Trump's campaign senior adviser Jason Miller seemed to push back on reports Trump was souring on Giuliani, though did not deny the President had told associates not to pay him.
"Just spoke with President Trump, and he told me that @RudyGiuliani is a great guy and a Patriot who devoted his services to the country! We all love America's Mayor!" Miller wrote on Thursday morning.
Meanwhile, John Eastman, the conservative attorney who falsely told Trump that Vice President Mike Pence could block the certification of Biden's win, could join Trump's legal team defending him in the upcoming impeachment trial, a person familiar with the matter said.
The discussions are still preliminary and Eastman isn't yet formally a part of the team. Chapman University, where Eastman had been working as a professor, announced Wednesday it had "reached an agreement pursuant to which he will retire from Chapman, effective immediately" following discussions this week.
"Dr. Eastman's departure closes this challenging chapter for Chapman and provides the most immediate and certain path forward for both the Chapman community and Dr. Eastman," Struppa said."Chapman and Dr. Eastman have agreed not to engage in legal actions of any kind, including any claim of defamation that may currently exist, as both parties move forward."
Another source of Trump's ire is House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who incensed Trump further on Wednesday by saying he bears responsibility for last week's riot. The President had already been upset with McCarthy after the California Republican left the option of censuring Trump on the table in a letter to colleagues earlier this week.
The details about Giuliani's legal fees were first reported by the Washington Post.
Isolated
The President is now more isolated than ever. Several of his Cabinet secretaries -- the ones who haven't resigned in protest -- are avoiding him, his relationship with the vice president remains fractured and several of his senior staffers are scheduled to depart their posts this week.
One White House advis toer told CNN that "everybody's angry at everyone" inside the White House, with the President being upset because he thinks people aren't defending him enough.
"He's in self-pity mode," the source said, with Trump complaining he's been under siege for five years and he views this latest impeachment as a continuation of that.
But many people close to Trump view the current situation as different than his first impeachment, when he was charged with pressuring the government of Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden to try and influence the presidential election.
Culled from: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/01/13/politics/donald-trump-rudy-giuliani-legal-fees-white-house/index.html
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