Meet the man defending Trump’s political adversaries

As President Donald Trump continues to order federal firings, investigations, and other sweeping acts of retribution, there is one man you can expect to be at the other end of the faceoff: Abbe Lowell.

The 73-year-old white collar defense and trial attorney has repeatedly appeared in the national spotlight, defending a sizable roster of high-profile Washingtonians on both sides of the isle that range from Trump’s perceived enemies to the president’s own family and inner circle.

“I have basically challenged the overreach of federal agencies in every administration since Ronald Reagan’s. Didn’t matter whether it’s a Democratic or Republican administration. If the government overreaches, then [the] lawyer’s job is to put the government in the right place,” Lowell said on MSNBC earlier this month.

MORE: Here’s a list of the individuals, including Lisa Cook, targeted so far by the Trump administration

But more recently, his focus has homed in on tackling Trump.

Lowell’s latest legal action

This week, Lowell has been hard at work challenging the administration’s latest axings, including Lisa Cook, who Trump moved to fire on Monday from her position as Federal Reserve Governor, and Susan Monarez, the Trump-appointed CDC director who was ousted Wednesday after one month in office.

Cook and her legal team, which includes Lowell, filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging Trump’s effort to fire her, calling the move “unprecedented and illegal.”

During a hearing Friday morning on Cook’s attempted firing, Lowell said “allegations of fraud have become the weapon of choice,” arguing that Trump is attempting to win control of the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates.

Regarding Monarez’s ousting, Lowell and other lawyers wrote in a statement that the CDC Director was being “targeted” after she “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.”

According to the New York Times, Lowell is also said to be in talks with John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser that the president has frequently snarled at. This follows last week’s FBI search of Bolton’s home and office – a move that Trump claimed he had no prior knowledge of.

Lowell’s mission

Three months after Trump took office for his second presidency, Lowell launched his own law firm, Lowell & Associates, that seeks to represent individuals he says have been “unlawfully and inappropriately targeted” by the Trump administration.

“What President Trump and the people who carry out his mandate – it makes George Orwell’s ‘1984’ look like a mother goose nursery rhyme. I mean, it is just beyond comprehension,” Lowell also told MSNBC, referring to the well-known novel about the oppressiveness of government overreach in a fictional dictatorship.

MORE: Trump has taken steps to make his campaign promise to seek ‘retribution’ reality, critics say

Lowell’s new firm supports a variety of individuals that the Trump administration has taken action against, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose civil suit against Trump and his company initially resulted in a $454 million fraud penalty, but the judgement was ultimately thrown out by an appeals court last week. In April, James was referred to the DOJ over mortgage fraud allegations, which she has denied.

Lowell has also been retained by Miles Taylor, who served in Trump’s first administration and released various written accounts about his time in office. In addition to calling Taylor a “traitor,” the president ordered the DOJ to conduct an investigation and accused Taylor of being guilty of “treason.” Taylor has denied the allegations.

Lowell is involved in defending Mark Zaid as well, the whistleblower attorney whom Trump revoked security clearances from in March. In a complaint filed two months later, Lowell and the other lawyers called this move “a dangerous, unconstitutional retaliation by the President of the United States against his perceived political enemies.”

Lowell’s diverse clientele

Despite his recent focus rebuking the Trump administration, Lowell has a history of representing both Republican and Democrat clients, including in the First Family.

“People keep pointing out that I might be the only person to have represented the child of a Republican president and the child of a Democratic president,” Lowell also said on MSNBC.

The attorney made a splash after taking on Hunter Biden as a client, who was convicted last year on three federal gun-related charges and ultimately pled guilty to unrelated tax charges before he was pardoned by his father, then-President Joe Biden.

But just a few years prior, Lowell represented Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump during the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 elections, where he forged ties with Trump’s inner circle.

MORE: Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner subpoenaed by special counsel investigating efforts to overturn election: Sources

In fact, campaign finance records showed that Trump’s reelection campaign paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to Winston & Strawn LLP, the firm Lowell had joined in 2018. Sources familiar with the payments told ABC News that at least two of those payments were made to Lowell for the legal fees of Trump’s son-in-law.

Under the defense of Lowell and others, Tom Barrack, a longtime Trump ally who ran his 2016 inaugural committee, and his real estate aide, Matthew Grimes, were acquitted in 2022 after they were accused of foreign lobbying – a case that included mentions of Trump himself.

Lowell served as Chief Minority Counsel to Congress during the impeachment proceedings of former President Bill Clinton, in addition to defending Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez during his federal bribery case and Nevada’s Republican Gov. Jim Gibbons during his FBI corruption investigation.

The Columbia Law School graduate also worked in the Justice Department under the Carter administration, and he later held positions as Special Counsel to the House Ethics Committee and Special Counsellor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva as well.