Trump’s go-to attorneys take unusual steps for a sitting president

Summary

• Boris Epshteyn leads Trump’s personal legal team
• Trump’s lawyers negotiated $1.8 billion IRS settlement fund
• Justice Department officials withdrew controversial IRS fund
• Epshteyn indicted on election-related charges in Arizona

After burning through a list of big-name attorneys whose advice he often rejected, President Donald Trump has turned to a group of less-known civil litigators as his personal lawyers.

In Trump’s eyes, they’re a team with a crucial strength – the willingness to make arguments other lawyers might balk at, according to a Trump adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak about internal discussions.

The lawyers have taken unusual steps for a sitting president, including suing journalists and litigating against the government he leads. At the same time, Trump has asserted greater control over the Justice Department than previous presidents. That has led to highly unusual situations in which proceedings that would typically be adversarial have had lawyers on both sides who are answerable to Trump, many of whom have previously worked together on his behalf.

Trump’s personal attorneys range in experience, temperament and politics, according to people who have worked with or against them and a review of court filings.

They have suffered some decisive losses and embarrassing judicial rulings and generated political controversies. But the president’s personal legal team has also scored some major wins. Those include settlements that emerged from lawsuits that critics called far-fetched or legally dubious when they were filed.

The central figure in the group, according to the Trump adviser and lawyers who have been involved in litigation with them, is Boris Epshteyn, a pugnacious longtime adviser to Trump. During the 2024 transition, incoming White House counsel David Warrington recommended the president cut ties with Epshteyn because of allegations that Epshteyn tried to use his closeness to Trump to enrich himself, according to his report, which was reviewed by The Washington Post.

Epshteyn has denied the self-enrichment allegations. “I am honored to work for President Trump and with his team,” he said in a statement at the time. “These fake claims are false and defamatory and will not distract us from Making America Great Again.”

Epshteyn took part in the discussions this year about creating a $1.8 billion fund to pay people who claim to have been politically targeted, according to two people familiar with the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe confidential negotiations. The fund was part of an agreement to settle a suit that Trump’s lawyers had brought against the IRS.

The IRS settlement stands out as the biggest and most scrutinized work that Trump’s current team of personal lawyers has done for him. The unprecedented settlement was struck between Trump’s personal lawyers and the government lawyers who, as executive branch employees, serve under him as the president. Legal experts, ethics watchdogs and Democrats assailed the arrangement and called the proposed fund a vehicle for paying Trump’s allies with taxpayer money and no oversight.

In June, Justice Department officials backed off the fund under pressure in court and from Republican lawmakers, and they have said it will not go forward. Trump has said he would still like to see it realized. The Justice Department has stood by another aspect of the settlement, which would bar the IRS from auditing tax returns Trump has submitted.

On the government side, Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward signed the agreement. Woodward worked with Epshteyn as a lawyer for the Trump campaign. He also represented Trump’s co-defendant in the now-dismissed criminal case in Florida alleging that the president unlawfully retained classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021.

Epshteyn’s name did not appear on the papers formalizing the deal, which listed David Z. Epstein and Alejandro Brito as Trump’s counsel.

People familiar with the arrangement said Epshteyn generally oversees the handling of Trump’s cases by his other personal attorneys, including Epstein and Brito, who appear in court and on filings. The people, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity, some because they are involved in litigation involving Trump’s lawyers, others because they have government positions and were not authorized to discuss the team’s work publicly.

Asked about the lawyers, a White House official said Trump “has assembled an extremely talented team of highly qualified legal minds.”

The White House referred questions to Trump’s personal lawyers. A spokesman for the legal team said they are committed to upholding Trump’s priorities.

Epshteyn, who is licensed to practice law in D.C. and New York, has not formally appeared in a federal case since a 2009 sublease dispute, according to a search of electronic federal court records. While mostly staying out of court, Epshteyn sometimes attended mediation sessions, according to a lawyer who has litigated against Trump.

Any attorney who wants to represent Trump is expected to be able to work with Epshteyn, according to the Trump adviser and other people familiar with the dynamics of the legal team.

Epshteyn can be at turns charming or bombastic, the lawyer who has litigated against him said, and his role is less as a legal expert than as the person who has the direct relationship with the client.

“He’s clearly the person who has direct access to the president and dictates where things go or not go,” the opposing lawyer said of Epshteyn.

Epshteyn entered Trump’s circle after meeting his son Eric at Georgetown University, where both were students – Eric Trump as an undergraduate and Epshteyn as an undergraduate and law student. He has served as a political and legal adviser since the 2016 campaign.

In Trump’s first term, when the president worked with experienced defense attorneys during the investigation into alleged Russian election interference, Epshteyn had less influence.

“Boris was a nobody when I was there,” said Ty Cobb, one of Trump’s defense attorneys in the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, who later became a critic of Trump.

But as the president has cut ties with other attorneys, he has increasingly turned to Epshteyn to reliably tell him yes when others said no, according to the Trump adviser.

In 2024, Epshteyn was indicted in Arizona on nine charges of conspiracy, fraud and forgery related to allegations he helped organize false claims that Trump won the state in the 2020 election. Epshteyn pleaded not guilty. A judge dismissed the case last year on the grounds that the grand jury had been given improper instructions on the law.

In late 2024, during the presidential transition, Warrington investigated allegations that Epshteyn asked for money from people seeking government appointments.

According to Warrington’s report, which was reviewed by The Post, Epshteyn asked Scott Bessent, now the treasury secretary, for a $40,000 retainer and to invest $10 million in a three-on-three basketball league and asked a government contractor for $100,000 a month.

“Epshteyn is using his proximity to President Trump for personal financial gain,” Warrington concluded in the report. “Epshteyn’s conduct must be stopped and his employment and proximity to President Trump should be terminated.”

In written responses to a question from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), Bessent said that no one ever asked him for money in exchange for a nomination. Wyden later said that Bessent acknowledged in a private meeting with the senator that he had discussed the possibility of paying Epshteyn for public relations advice.

Trump Communications Director Steven Cheung said at the time that, per standard practice, the White House conducted a review of the campaign’s consulting agreements, including its contract with Epshteyn.

“We are now moving ahead together as a team to help President Trump Make America Great Again,” Cheung said in a statement.

Trump did not act on Warrington’s recommendation. Epshteyn’s consulting firm receives $50,000 a month for “communications and legal consulting” from the PAC that used to be Trump’s campaign, according to campaign finance records. The firm has represented some additional clients in previous election cycles.

Before entering politics, Trump often worked with pugilists such as the late Roy Cohn, the onetime counsel to Sen. Joe McCarthy who served as a mentor to Trump in the 1970s, and Michael Cohen, who represented Trump in the years before he ran for president. Epshteyn fits that mold, people who know him said.

“He’s smart. He is ambitious. And, most importantly, he is loyal,” said Cohen, who had a falling-out with the president and was a key witness in the New York criminal case against Trump.

“Trump is a complex individual. He thinks fast while throwing at you multiple tasks, and all at the same time. Boris has the capacity to keep up.”

Of the other two lawyers, Brito is considered the more experienced litigator and Epstein is more ideological, people who have dealt with the team said.

Brito is “the type of fellow you would want to have as your lawyer,” said Richard Klugh, a Miami-based defense attorney who has known Brito for more than a decade. “He’s a good, hard-working honest person. He’s humble. He doesn’t put his own interest ahead of his clients.”

Klugh is also on the legal team representing Trump in his case against the IRS, although he did not sign the deal creating the weaponization fund. Klugh, a criminal defense attorney, said he has kept up his typical, large caseload in addition to the Trump cases.

In his years knowing Brito in the Miami legal community, Klugh said he has never heard him talk about politics. Brito has contributed to Republican and Democratic campaigns in the past, according to federal disclosures. He gave $500 to support then-President Barack Obama in 2012 and $250 to Democrat Beto O’Rourke of Texas in 2018.

Brito has specialized in business disputes, defense against disability-access complaints, and trademark enforcement for the fashion houses Perry Ellis, Original Penguin and Missoni, among other clients. He has also represented boxing promoter Don King and rappers Megan Thee Stallion and Shawn Carter (better known as Jay-Z).

Brito started working for Trump in 2023, when he took over a defamation lawsuit against CNN. Judge Raag Singhal, a Trump appointee, dismissed the case, and that dismissal was upheld on appeal.

Epstein started working for Trump during the 2024 campaign, according to court filings.

Epstein “will do what Boris says,” including arguments that other lawyers push back against making in court, said the Trump adviser.

In 2025, working with the America First Legal Foundation, the nonprofit founded by powerful Trump adviser Stephen Miller, Epstein sued Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in his capacity as head of the federal Judicial Conference seeking to enforce a public records request, even though the federal Freedom of Information Act does not cover the judicial branch. The judge, Trump appointee Trevor N. McFadden, dismissed the case in an opinion that noted Epstein seemed to walk back one of his own arguments under questioning.

Epstein also mounted an unsuccessful challenge to California’s congressional redistricting. He filed the case in the federal courthouse in Amarillo, Texas, a venue that is popular with conservatives because the only judge there is Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who has ruled in favor of conservative litigants in multiple high-profile cases.

In the lawsuit, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), Trump’s former White House doctor and a close ally, sued California Gov. Gavin Newsom to stop his redistricting initiative. He argued that the redistricting plan would result in tipping control of the House to Democrats. Kacsmaryk dismissed the case, ruling that Epstein hadn’t shown how California’s action would harm Jackson.

On Trump’s behalf, Brito and Epstein have repeatedly sued media companies. Those lawsuits include demanding billions from ABC, CBS, the BBC, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Brito represents Trump Media and Technology Group in an ongoing suit against The Post. On July 2, District Judge Thomas Barber granted summary judgment for The Post; Trump Media has said it is considering an appeal.

The first version of Trump’s complaint against the Times, signed by Brito and Epstein in 2025, was rejected by the judge, George H.W. Bush appointee Steven D. Merryday, as “an improper and impermissible place for the tedious and burdensome aggregation of prospective evidence.” Trump’s lawyers filed a new version of their suit, which the Times has moved to dismiss.

Trump’s lawyers have also won some significant settlements from media companies.

In December 2024 – weeks after Trump secured his presidential victory – ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit that Trump brought against the network and anchor George Stephanopoulos in March. In September 2025, YouTube, which is owned by Google, agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump over the company’s 2021 decision to suspend his account after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Under that settlement, YouTube would pay $22 million of the total to help fund construction of the White House’s ballroom that Trump has planned.

And in July 2025, CBS News’s parent company, Paramount, settled a suit filed by Trump in which he alleged that his electoral chances were harmed after the network aired two separate versions of an answer given by then-Vice President Kamala Harris during an interview for “60 Minutes.” Paramount agreed to pay $16 million.

Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.