I’m not exactly rooting for Donald Trump to win in court since I think he should have his fortune confiscated and be incarcerated for the rest of his life. I also consider anyone who agrees to give him legal representation to be a fool, not only because they might not be paid in full but because Trump doesn’t fucking listen to good legal advice.  When Chris Kise was brought on as a lead attorney on the stolen classified documents case,  he took care of the former problem by getting $3 million in advance: “The retainer fee, paid upfront, raised eyebrows among other lawyers on Trump’s team, given the former President has a developed a reputation for not paying his legal fees.”

In contrast to the disgraced ex-president’s other lawyers, who seem to have been selected by throwing darts at a phone book, Kise has important experience in the relevant legal field, as well as in the Florida federal courts. It looked like Trump was going to get competent representation for a change. But CNN reports that the Kise is already off the case.

The newest addition to former President Donald Trump’s legal team, Chris Kise, has been sidelined from the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation less than a month after he was brought on to represent Trump in the matter, two sources familiar with the move tell CNN.

Kise is expected to remain on Trump’s legal team but is not leading the work related to the federal government’s investigation into how the former President handled 11,000 documents seized from his Florida home in August following a lengthy effort by the government to retrieve them. The reason for the shift in Kise’s role remains unclear and he may instead focus his efforts on the other investigations Trump is facing, which range from his business practices to the January 6 insurrection.

Here’s a real kicker. Kise actually quit his law firm, Foley & Lardner, to take the job at Trump’s attorney. He’s got three mil in his pocket and nothing to do. There’s no evidence, as of yet, that he’s active in any of the other court cases plaguing Trump, but presumably he’ll be slotted in somewhere if only so he can earn some the windfall Trump has already paid him.

Of course, the immediate speculation is that Kise isn’t working the Mar-a-Lago case anymore because Trump wouldn’t follow his guidance. It would obviously surprise me if Trump did take his advice, but there’s another possible reason. He recently represented the Venezuelan government.  He was actually a registered foreign agent of the Venezuelan government.  This is from 2020:

Chris Kise, the attorney who turned over key documents in the ethics case against former Tallahassee [mayor] Andrew Gillum, is now representing a member of the Nicolás Maduro government according to documents reviewed by Florida Politics.

Kise is listed on a Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) form to work on behalf of Venezuelan Attorney General Reinaldo Muñoz Pedroza. Muñoz Pedroza was appointed Attorney General by Maduro, though the United States no longer recognizes Maduro’s government as legitimate.

Since Venezuela is considered to have an adversarial relationship with the United States, it’s possible that Kise cannot get the extremely high-level security clearances he needs to effectively represent Trump in the case.

In truth, I’m not sure any Trump lawyer will ever see the content of the top secret documents he squirreled away at Mar-a-Lago, but it’s possible that the Kise hire has run into a security clearance snafu. If so, Trump will surely regret paying him upfront.