COLUMBIA — For more than a decade when Republican politicians in South Carolina faced a daunting legal threat, there's been one name at the top of their list of people to call: Butch Bowers.
The Columbia-based attorney has defended governors, top lawmakers, state party leaders and other household names all over the Palmetto State, scoring victory after victory in a wide array of high-stakes situations.
Now, Bowers, 55, is set to take on by far the most high-profile case of his career: The Senate impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.
At the suggestion of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Trump added Bowers to his legal team this week as he prepares to defend himself from charges he incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, when supporters of his stormed the building over unfounded claims that the presidential election was "stolen."
Lawyers and political figures from across Bowers' home state, including both longtime allies and regular courtroom foes, say Trump could hardly find a more capable attorney to make his case.
"I’ve been litigating for 40 years and he’s one of the best lawyers I've ever been up against," said state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Columbia.
Longtime ethics watchdog John Crangle, who's often taken the opposing view of Bowers in high-profile disputes involving S.C. politicians, said Bowers' clients "have gotten the best quality person they can get for that line of work in South Carolina and the most experienced in doing it — and the most successful."
Robert Goings, a top trial lawyer in Columbia, has worked both with and against Bowers on cases over the years. Now, whenever possible, Goings said he always tries to stay on the same side as Bowers because he finds him to be "a winner."
Bowers will have two weeks to prepare for the impeachment trial set to start Feb. 9 where he is expected to provide a steady hand to a former president often surrounded by turmoil.
"If Donald Trump would have hired Butch Bowers four years ago," Goings said, "our country would not be in the mess we are in today."
'A real lawyer'
Bowers' hiring marks a stark contrast to some of the more bombastic legal advisers Trump appeared to surround himself with in the aftermath of his 2020 election defeat.
Cable television fixtures like former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell aired a wide array of outlandish conspiracy theories in the months since the election but found little success advancing Trump's case in any real court of law.
In Bowers, by contrast, Trump will be getting "a real lawyer who's been in real cases, made real arguments, knows how to examine witnesses — all the sorts of things you'd want to see in a real lawyer," Harpootlian said.
Tim Pearson, a close friend of Bowers and the chief political strategist for S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster, said Trump "is obviously taking this seriously because he's no longer listening to the nutcase brigade of legal wannabes that is out there feeding him nonsense and he's now got a serious lawyer."
Bowers declined requests to be interviewed for this story. Approached by a reporter outside his office Thursday shortly after the news of his hire came out, all Bowers would say was that he looked forward to representing the president.
That reluctance to milk this moment in the national spotlight, allies said, shows precisely the type of professionalism that has been lacking in some of Trump's prior legal advisers.
"Butch focuses on defending his client more than he focuses on his own TV profile or his own bottom line," veteran S.C. GOP operative Rob Godfrey said. "That has to be a welcome change in an orbit that has been filled with a cast of characters that sometimes resembles the worst cartoon you could imagine."
Military background
Bowers was born in Estill, a small Hampton County town about two hours west of Charleston. His father, Karl, was a magistrate who became chairman of the state highway commission in mid-1970s and served as federal highway administrator under President Jimmy Carter.
Months after his tenure in Washington, D.C., ended, Karl Bowers was convicted on tax evasion charges soon in 1980, according to an Associated Press report. He lost his final appeal in 1983 when McMaster was the U.S. attorney in South Carolina. Karl Bowers spent less than a year in federal prison.
Bowers was in high school when his father went to prison. He received a political science degree from the University of South Carolina in 1988, a master’s degree in public administration from the College of Charleston and a law degree from Tulane University.
Now a married father of four, Bowers is a colonel in the S.C. Air National Guard. He enlisted at age 17 after his father would take him to national guard weekend drills as a child, Bowers wrote in an online column for the unit.
He was a medical service and transportation officer before joining the Judge Advocate General's (JAG) corps after graduating from law school and became a top legal officer in the Guard.
Butch Bowers, who will defend former President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial, is a colonel in the S.C. Air National Guard. S.C. Air National Guard/Provided
That experience is part of what distinguishes Bowers, said S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson, who has worked closely with Bowers on the Guard’s legal team.
"Being a military leader teaches you how to make tough decisions while under immense stress and a lot of public scrutiny," Wilson said. "A JAG officer doesn’t just have to be a good lawyer, they’ve got to be able to be dropped into a war zone and be able to carry their weight just like every other soldier."
High-profile cases
One of Bowers' first law jobs in the 1990s was at McMaster's family firm. He now works as campaign counsel for McMaster, a Trump ally who shared office space with Bowers at a building around the corner from the S.C. Statehouse.
He has previously represented three other governors, two in South Carolina and one in North Carolina, as well as the S.C. Republican Party and S.C. Election Commission, which he chaired in the mid 2000s. He was special counsel on voting matters at the U.S. Department of Justice under President George W. Bush.
He helped then-Gov. Mark Sanford escape a brewing impeachment effort in 2009 after Sanford secretly left the state to visit his mistress in Argentina, and a few years later then-Gov. Nikki Haley win a House ethics hearing after she was accused of using her office for personal gain when she was in the Legislature.
"Butch is a good friend and a fine lawyer," said Haley, who was the United Nations ambassador under Trump for two years and considered a likely presidential contender in 2024. "President Trump is fortunate to have him on his team."
Sanford said Bowers "would be an asset to anyone for whom he's arguing."
"He doesn’t have a bombastic or loud style, but in keeping with what you’d expect of a Southerner and military officer, he is lucid, clear, to the point, and is very thorough in his recollection and search of details," Sanford said.
Former S.C. GOP chairwoman Karen Floyd said Bowers was so good at breaking down complicated legal matters while working at the party that she hired him for some corporate work after she left her leadership post.
She called the soft-spoken, 6-foot-4 Bowers a "gentle giant" but said his calm demeanor can fool some people.
"If you pick up a rock, he'll pick up an atomic bomb," Floyd said. "When you meet him, you have no idea that there's a fire in there. But there is a tremendous ability to fight and advocate, so much so that it’s almost surprising when you see him in battle mode."
As a vocal Trump critic, Sanford expressed surprise when he learned Bowers would be taking on the case, saying he did not expect that from "the caliber of person I've known Butch to be."
But Sanford also said he could understand the calculation. At least 17 Republican senators would need to vote to convict Trump in order for him to lose the case, which currently appears unlikely, barring the emergence of new evidence.
"It’s a smart, measured move by Butch in that the near-certain outcome is that Trump will win based on the vote count in the Senate," Sanford said. "And in doing so, he’ll be able to put another feather in his cap where he can say that he's successfully defended the impeachment of a president."
