Mueller’s Russia investigators want to talk to the president right as his legal team is falling apart.
President Trump’s legal team is in shambles at one of the worst possible moments in the Russia investigation.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is heating up, and Trump is facing a big decision about whether to sit down for an interview with Mueller. But because of the staffing chaos that seems to have plagued the rest of his administration, the president now finds himself with virtually no qualified attorneys left to defend him in the Russia probe.
Trump’s top personal lawyer, John Dowd, resigned on Thursday. Reports say he’d grown frustrated with Trump’s unwillingness to heed his legal advice, including his view that an interview with Mueller would be too risky.
And less than a week after announcing that Trump was adding two new lawyers to his legal team, personal Trump attorney Jay Sekulow had to walk back the announcement, saying the two wouldn’t be working on the special counsel investigation after all because of “conflicts” with their other clients.
White House lawyers Ty Cobb and Don McGahn work for Trump on issues tied to the Russia investigation, but both are on the taxpayer payroll, meaning they are responsible for protecting the office of the presidency, not Trump personally. McGahn and Cobb are both reportedly considering leaving as well.
And new lawyers who could join the team are looking at the chaos and deciding it’s not worth getting involved.
“This is turmoil, it’s chaos, it’s confusion, it’s not good for anything,” Ted Olson, a George W. Bush administration solicitor general, told NBC on Monday. Olson turned down an offer from Trump to join the legal team last week.
All of which means that Trump is now left with only Sekulow — a lawyer and radio host best known for defending conservative and evangelical Christian causes — to defend his interests full time at a critical junction in the Russia investigation.
Trump continues to insist that he’s innocent and that there was “NO COLLUSION!” with Russia — and that very well may be true, at least for him personally. But even an innocent president would need major legal help when facing a year-long special counsel investigation with at least 17 experienced prosecutors digging into his past business dealings and campaign contacts.
