Representing Jared Kushner is about hottest game in town right now and one high-powered Washington lawyer doesn’t want the job anymore. Yahoo's Michael Isikoff writes:
Jamie Gorelick, a politically well connected lawyer who has been representing Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, is dropping out of the case, turning over all responsibilities for the Russia investigation to Abbe Lowell, another high profile Washington criminal defense lawyer.
In the coming weeks, Gorelick will be “wrapping up” her representation of Kushner on issues relating to ethics and his security clearance form, the sources said. But Lowell, a skilled litigator who has represented clients ranging from former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) to corrupt Washington fixer Jack Abramoff, will exclusively represent Kushner in inquires being conducted by congressional committees and Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller.
At the same time, Donald Trump plans to add a veteran Washington lawyer to his White House team, Ty Cobb, who will be responsible for all legal and media requests regarding the Russia investigation. Bloomberg writes:
Top administration officials want someone to enforce discipline in the White House regarding Russia matters -- and that includes the president, who frequently vents his frustrations about the investigations on Twitter, two people familiar with the plan said.
Good luck with all that “discipline.” Isikoff writes that Cobb prefers to "to get out in front of negative stories and publicly release as much information as possible” lest it turn into a steady drip of bad news. Good luck with that too.
Gorelick's departure was reportedly expected, since special counsel Robert Mueller was a partner in her law firm. That posed conflicts and she advised Kushner that it might even work against him if Mueller went the extra mile to avoid showing any favoritism. After Mueller was appointed, Kushner chose to add Lowell.
But her exit does hold some intrigue because she was handling Kushner's SF86 security clearance forms (the ones he's updated several times now). Those are the forms that lie at the heart of discovering the Don Jr. meeting that now reportedly includes at least 8 (!) people. That's where this earlier reporting from CNN gets interesting:
Two sources told CNN it was Kushner's team that discovered the emails showing Donald Trump Jr. accepted a meeting at Trump Tower with a lawyer who was presented as a Russian government lawyer able to provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
Kushner's lawyers were preparing documents to turn over to Senate Intelligence Committee investigators, and the email discovery created another problem for them.
Earlier this spring, Kushner had amended his SF-86 form submitted to the FBI as part of his security clearance application. At that time, in their second revision to the original form, the Kushner lawyers listed about 100 foreign contacts. But they did not list the June 2016 meeting with the Russian lawyer.
So Kushner's attorneys are scouring his email as they prep documents for Senate Intel when they find this, um, not so insignificant meeting that he conveniently left out yet again of his second try at disclosing his foreign contacts. Oops. Sounds like someone wasn’t entirely forthcoming… even with his lawyer.
Gorelick may have been expected to leave, but she also might be getting out from under this house of cards before it all caves in.