The attorney heading the team that’s tasked with defending Donald Trump in the investigation into connections between the Trump campaign and Russia has decided to “retire.” And a replacement attorney has already been selected—one with very special experience.
President Trump plans to hire Emmet T. Flood, the veteran Washington lawyer who represented Bill Clinton during his impeachment, to replace Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer who has taken the lead in dealing with the special counsel investigation, who is retiring, according to two people briefed on the matter.
Cobb is the second attorney from Trump’s team who “decided to retire” in the middle of his most important case. John Dowd “retired” in March, leaving Cobb and Jay Sekulow at the helm of Trump’s legal team. In that role, Cobb seemed mainly to make constant, but fruitless, efforts to keep Trump from railing against special counsel Robert Mueller and taking steps that would lead to a confrontation with Congress.
But Trump seems to be powering up to end the investigation. He’s likely thinking that it would be better to go before the House now, where it is dominated by the same Republicans who just gave him a “no collusion” report to waive in front of the public, rather than wait for Mueller to finish his investigation and face a report delivered to a Congress whose makeup may be quite different.
And Flood is there to back his move.
Mr. Flood is expected to take a more adversarial approach to the investigation than Mr. Cobb, who had pushed Mr. Trump to strike a cooperative tone. Mr. Flood initially spoke with the White House last summer about working for the president, but the talks ultimately fell apart because Mr. Flood did not want to deal with Mr. Trump’s longtime New York lawyer, Marc E. Kasowitz, who was overseeing the president’s dealings with the special counsel at the time.
Kasowitz stepped down. Dowd stepped out. Cobb is running away.
And now it’s Flood there, not to encourage Trump to wait out the storm. But to bring it on.
With Cobb and Dowd’s departure, none of Trump’s attorneys have security clearance.
Donald Trump’s current team of lawyers lacks the security clearances needed to discuss sensitive issues related to a possible presidential interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, according to two people familiar with the matter.
But security clearance is only a problem for people who follow the rules. And Donald Trump is done following any rules.
