Pro-se Trump?

I'm reading "Trump Names Two Members of Impeachment Defense Team/The announcement came a day after he parted ways with five lawyers, and with his trial looming next week" (NYT):

Mr. Trump has told advisers he wants the defense to focus on his baseless claims about election fraud, a person familiar with the discussions said. A person close to the former president disputed that that was the case, but conceded that Mr. Trump had dismissively said the case was so simple that he could try it himself and save money.

Just to save money? Or does he think he's the one best able to put the case in the form that seems right to him: simple!

I wouldn't put it past him. After all, he decided that he could do the whole President-of-the-United-States job. The weirdest thing that's happened in my lifetime is Trump becoming President. I can totally see the Senate doors opening and Trump strutting in, with just a page of notes tucked into his jacket pocket. 

I floated the pro-se Trump theory yesterday, here.

Is Trump pathetically lawyerless or is he planning the power move of all time — representing himself on the Senate floor?

The conventional wisdom is, of course, that you never want to represent yourself — but that's in reference to the conventional setting, where you are in court and it's a law-based affair. Trump faces a trial in the midst of 100 Senators, with no Chief Justice presiding — no separate decision-makers of law and fact — and a complete tangle of law and politics, with politics taking precedence over law. 

Think about the stakes: What does Trump risk if he loses? Disqualification from running for office again? The real stakes are history — who writes it and whether Trump, in this next chapter, is a has-been holed up in Florida or the biggest, ballsiest man in American history, fighting 100 pompous politicos on the floor of the Senate. What a wildly entertaining movie! You say he's a narcissist? A reality-show star who somehow burst into the highest level of politics, where he boldly, recklessly proceeds on instinct and optimism? 

I'm sketching out these thoughts after seeing this glaring headline at Drudge this morning:

That links to a milder headline I'd seen yesterday: "First on CNN: Trump's impeachment defense team leaves less than two weeks before trial" (CNN).

Why do you think he's using these lawyers, then sending them on their way? Do you think they are abandoning him because he wants them to do things that they can't ethically do?

Former President Donald Trump's five impeachment defense attorneys have left a little more than a week before his trial is set to begin, according to people familiar with the case, amid a disagreement over his legal strategy. It was a dramatic development in the second impeachment trial for Trump, who has struggled to find lawyers willing to take his case.... 

He's down. His enemies see him as already defeated. Pathetic. Even his lawyers won't touch him. The 100 Senators are setting up to destroy his reputation, to write him down in history as The Worst President....