Kanye West’s ex-publicist dropped by lawyers in Trump election case after posing with QAnon Shaman
Trevian Kutti allegedly threatened a witness in the case, fuelling speculation prosecutors would try to revoke bond
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Your support makes all the difference.Attorneys for a former publicist for Kanye West who is now a co-defendant in Donald Trump’s election interference case in Georgia have filed notice that they will no longer be representing their client.
A filing in Fulton County Superior Court on Monday night did not cite a reason.
Hours earlier, Ms Kutti posted a photo to Instagram alongside Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman,” who was convicted of obstruction in connection with the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. A caption on the photo, in which they’re both holding middle fingers to the camera, reads “cue the haters”.
Earlier this month, Ms Kutti appeared to threaten a witness in the case, fuelling speculation that the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis would ask a judge to revoke her bond.
She has pleaded not guilty to racketeering and witness intimidation charges and is free on a $75,000 bond.
Defence attorney Steve Greenberg told The Independent that he does “not comment upon matters that are best kept private, including my discussions with my clients” and continues to believe “that as far as Ms Kutti is concerned this is a wrongful prosecution that seeks to extinguish her First Amendment rights.”
In an interview with The Messenger, Ms Kutti’s Atlanta-based attorney Darryl Cohen said that “in order to have a good lawyer-client relationship, the client has to listen, the client has to be on board and you have to be paid.”
“I’m not saying any of those things did or didn’t happen, but you can extrapolate,” he added. The Messenger noted he was speaking “generically”.
In comments on Instagram Live earlier this month, Ms Kutti took aim at Ruby Freeman, a former election worker from Atlanta who faced an avalanche of threats and intimidation fuelled by conspiracy theories and statements from Rudy Giuliani and others in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
A federal jury in Washington DC last week determined that Mr Giuliani owes Ms Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss more than $148m for their claims of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, as well as punitive damages.
Those attacks and an alleged pressure campaign against them are also at the centre of the indictment in Georgia, where the former president and more than a dozen others are accused of engaging in a “criminal enterprise” to unlawfully overturn the state’s election results.
“There’s a woman sitting somewhere who knows this whole thing is a lie, who knows I never did anything to her, who knows I never … who knows she begged me for help,” Ms Kutti said in the Instagram Live video. “There’s a woman sitting somewhere who knows that I’m going to f*** her whole life up when this is done.”
The Fulton County indictment accuses Ms Kutti of telling Ms Freeman that an “armed squad” of law enforcement officers would find her and her family if she did not falsely admit to committing election fraud.
She allegedly offered to connect Ms Freeman to “very high-profile people that can make particular things happen … in order to defend yourself and your family” and labeled her “a loose end for a party that needs to tidy up,” then told her that her “freedom and the freedom of one or more of your family members” is at risk, according to court documents citing police video.
Last month, Ms Willis made her courtroom debut in the case as she pressed a judge to revoke a bond order for another one of the former president’s co-defendants.
Harrison Floyd, the leader of Black Voices for Trump, has “engaged in a pattern of intimidation” against his co-defendants and witnesses since he was released on bond in August, according to her office.
Following a three-hour hearing, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee declined to send Mr Floyd back to jail and directed the parties to draft an order that reels in his public statements.
Prosecutors have proposed an August 2024 trial date, which Mr Trump’s attorneys have called “election interference” as he seeks the Republican nomination for president.