As the legal battles continue to swirl around the events of January 6, former President Donald Trump finds himself hit yet another indictment, and he’s hinting at a new legal strategy: putting the blame on his lawyers.

In a series of posts on his Truth Social platform, Trump maintained his innocence, claiming he “did nothing wrong” during the January 6 riot and the alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election. He further asserted that he was acting on the advice of multiple lawyers at the time.

A recent in-depth report by Rolling Stone’s Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley has shed light on this intriguing legal strategy, suggesting that Trump’s legal team may try to shift blame onto specific advisors, namely John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani. The argument put forward would claim that these lawyers were leading Trump’s actions, rather than the other way around.

Sources close to the former president have disclosed that Trump favors this argument, with one advisor stating, “John [Eastman] and Rudy [Giuliani] gave a lot of counsel … Other people can decide how sound it was.”

Giuliani recently admitted in a court filing that his public allegations of election fraud in Georgia were false. Eastman, when testifying before the January 6 Committee in June 2022, acknowledged that his efforts to have former Vice President Mike Pence overturn the 2020 election were legally dubious, even requesting a potential presidential pardon from Giuliani.

Experts caution that relying solely on the “advice of counsel” defense might not be sufficient, as Trump’s decision-making process includes input from various sources, not just his legal advisors. Tim Parlatore, one of Trump’s former lawyers, who left in May, is arguing for a broader defense strategy that considers all the information that influenced Trump’s state of mind and decision-making, not just advice from his legal representatives.

Steven Groves, a former attorney and White House spokesman, highlighted the limits of the “advice of counsel” argument, comparing it to an extreme case of suggesting a client can commit murder based on obscure legal interpretations. This defense, if taken to such an extreme, could backfire if Trump is found to have committed any wrongdoing.

This would not be the first time Trump has sought to deflect blame for the events of January 6. The former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, was once considered a potential target, with Trump claiming he was not fully aware of Meadows’ activities leading up to the Capitol assault during the Jan. 6 committee investigation.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)