With two weeks to go before his impeachment trial in the Senate, defendant Donald Trump is without representation. We learned on Saturday night from Politico that his top two attorneys were off the case and now CNN is reporting all five lawyers are gone. The news network is reporting “Trump’s lies and his insistence that the November election was rigged against him may have turned out to be a bridge too far” for his legal team.

A person familiar with the departures of the five attorneys — Butch Bowers, Deborah Barbier, Josh Howard, Johnny Gasser and Greg Harris — told CNN that Trump wanted the attorneys to center his defense on the notion that there was mass election fraud in November and that the election was stolen from him, instead of questioning the legality of convicting a president after he’s left office. Trump was not receptive to the discussions about how they should proceed, according to CNN’s Gloria Borger, Kaitlan Collins, Jeff Zeleny and Ashley Semler.

The collapse of his legal team stands in stark contrast to the former president’s treatment by the GOP which continues to coddle Trump.

“While the Republican Party continues to bend to Trump’s whims, forgive his dangerous behavior, and quiver in the face of his election threats, the judiciary and the legal profession are adhering to a higher ethical standard — and have largely refused to tolerate his efforts to ramrod the nation’s democratic institutions and founding principles throughout his baseless election charade — making the GOP’s loyalty to Trump even more appalling.” -CNN