Donald Trump has turned to a group of lesser-known civil litigators as his Trump lawyer team during his second presidency, choosing lawyers who will make arguments others might avoid. Their work now overlaps with the Justice Department, which can put lawyers answerable to Trump on opposite sides of the same dispute.
Boris Epshteyn and David Warrington
Isaac Arnsdorf and Perry Stein reported that Trump reached that point after burning through a list of big-name attorneys whose advice he often rejected. They wrote that the lawyers are "a team with a crucial strength — the willingness to make arguments other lawyers might balk at."
Boris Epshteyn sits at the center of that group. During the 2024 transition, incoming White House counsel David Warrington recommended that Trump cut ties with Epshteyn because of allegations that Epshteyn tried to use his closeness to Trump to enrich himself.
Ty Cobb on Boris Epshteyn
Ty Cobb, who represented Trump during the Russia probe in 2016, later became a critic of him. He told the Post, "Boris was a nobody when I was there."
The Washington Post reporting also says one lawyer described Epshteyn as at turns charming or bombastic. That personal network matters because many of the lawyers involved have previously worked together on Trump’s behalf, which keeps the same circle inside disputes that would normally put one side against the other.
Justice Department overlap
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, so those disputes can run with both sides tied back to him.
July 8, 2026, a photo caption placed Trump in Ankara, Turkey, but the reporting here centers on the legal structure around him rather than that appearance. The open question is which journalists and government cases his personal lawyers are pursuing now.
