Former President Donald Trump, as well as his oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., have retained attorney Jesse Binnall to represent each of them in a lawsuit filed by Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA), according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Binnall, a Virginia-based Republican attorney, previously represented Trump’s former national security adviser Mike Flynn, along with attorney Sidney Powell, after prosecutors accused him of lying to the FBI about his communications with the Russian ambassador to the US.
More recently, Binnall filed a lawsuit in Nevada on behalf of the Trump campaign seeking to overturn President Joe Biden’s election victory there, and he has also defended the defense of the Republic, a legal group founded in part by Powell, in a Libel suit filed by Dominion Voting Systems.
Trump Jr. is now Trump’s second family member to be represented by Binnall after the attorney applied to represent former President Trump in a similar lawsuit filed by Democratic Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson.
Both the Thompson and Swalwell lawsuit allege that Trump and his associates violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and that Trump’s rhetoric was part of a deliberate attempt to incite rioters to get Congressional certification of the President Biden’s victory on January 6.
Binnall also represented Trump in a lawsuit filed in November against the then president, his campaign and the Republican National Committee. The lawsuit alleged that Trump “tried to reverse the election results by depriving voters, especially colored voters,” in part by “intimidating election officials and voters while counting votes.”