(Reuters) – As established law firms withdrew from representing President Donald Trump in his long-shot challenges to U.S. election results, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has spearheaded the continuing effort, despite a lack of evidence of widespread fraud and a string of losses.
The following lawyers are among those on the latest legal team:
RUDY GIULIANI
He led the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York in the 1980s and later gained acclaim while mayor of New York steering the city through the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the aftermath.
Giuliani began representing Republican Trump in April 2018 in connection with former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Giuliani was a key figure in the 2019-2020 impeachment inquiry into whether Trump abused his office for personal political gain in his dealings with Ukraine. Giuliani began an investigation into now President-elect Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in Ukraine. The Bidens have denied any wrongdoing.
Last month, Giuliani drew attention when he appeared in a satire film by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. The plot revolves around attempts by the character Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyevto to marry off his 15 year-old daughter to Vice President Mike Pence or, failing that, Giuliani.
In the days following Democrat Biden’s election victory, critics of Giuliani derided him for staging a press conference in the parking lot of Philadelphia’s Four Seasons Total Landscaping, a business located between a sex shop and a crematorium and a far cry from the luxury hotel where Trump initially tweeted that the event would be held.
JOE DIGENOVA AND VICTORIA TOENSING
The husband-and-wife law partners are helping Giuliani bring cases contesting election results in battleground states. A former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, diGenova pushed the theory that lawmakers tried to frame Trump when they investigated whether his campaign colluded with Russia four years ago. Mueller concluded that no collusion had occurred.
Toensing and diGenova are panelists on Newsmax, a right-wing media outlet. They also represent Ukrainian businessman Dmitri Firtash, who was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with bribery and racketeering.
SIDNEY POWELL
A former federal prosecutor, Powell in recent years has appeared as a conservative pundit on Fox News and other media outlets. Trump tweeted praise for Powell when she was retained by Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn in his criminal case brought by Mueller.
This month, Powell launched a Legal Defense Fund for the American Republic to try to stop the U.S. election results from being certified in Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin.
Powell has said without providing evidence, that millions of votes were “shifted” from Trump to Biden by software designed to rig the election. Election security officials last week said there was “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”
JENNA ELLIS
A senior legal adviser to the Trump election campaign and personal attorney to Trump. Ellis, an evangelical, is the author of the 2015 book, “The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution,” a guide for Christians.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Grant McCool)
