Bruce Castor's not-so-surprising decision to represent Donald Trump

Note: This column first appeared on Inquirer.com on Feb. 3, 2021 then in print in the Sunday edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer and that Monday’s edition of the Philadelphia Daily News.

When I first learned that former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. was part of former President Trump’s new legal team, I just shook my head and thought, “Of course he is.” Castor, who has been a Montgomery County commissioner, Pennsylvania’s solicitor general and, briefly, acting attorney general but is most famous for not prosecuting Bill Cosby in 2005, seems to have more professional resurrections than a cat has lives. He’s a well-known player in the theater otherwise known as state and local politics and he always seems to surface when you least expect it.

I couldn’t help but think how alike Castor and former President Trump are, if for no other reason than their contentious relationships with the press. Both relish being the center of media attention but bristle under the scrutiny that attention brings them. Yet Castor is willing to subject himself to that scrutiny time and again because he loves the limelight, no matter how much the glare from it exposes his own flaws, and seems willing to take any opportunity to make himself relevant again.

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