- Even, Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney is under investigation as part of the congressional probes into ties between Trump’s campaign and Russia. Michael Cohen, who has been a close adviser to Trump for years and was a campaign surrogate, confirmed that the House and Senate intelligence committees requested “information and testimony” from him, but he chose not to comply. Here on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, Donald Trump’s lawyer now has a lawyer for the Russia investigation, as Trump himself hires another attorney: this one, a high-profile criminal attorney, as the special counsel appears to expands his probe. Max Boot and David Cay Johnston join Lawrence O’Donnell. When your lawyers lawyer up you know you’re in trouble.
On The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell ProPublica reports Trump’s lawyer Marc Kasowitz doesn’t have a security clearance to handle classified info in the Russia case, and Lawrence O’Donnell says he’ll never get one after sending profanity-laced email threats.
On The 11th Hour with Brian Williams The president has added yet another lawyer to his outside counsel team as news breaks that his son didn’t share everything there was to know about his June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer.
On The Rachel Maddow Show Rachel Maddow shows how Donald Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow, who is touted as a superior communicator, is producing a streak of unforced errors and gaffes with his appearances on TV representing Trump.
- Donald Trump is shaking up his legal team in addition to his communications staff as he seeks to combat an expanding and intensifying Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller. Attorney John Dowd said he will be the president’s lead lawyer on the issue, while Marc Kasowitz will have a scaled-back role. The tumult around Trump followed an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday (July 19th 2017) in which the president warned Mueller not to broaden his investigation to his or his family’s businesses. Yet Mueller has already begun examining the businesses, people familiar with the investigation have told Bloomberg News.
While Dowd denied reports that Trump seeks to target potential conflicts of interest on Mueller’s team, such as donations to Democrats by some of his attorneys, senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway accused Mueller’s team of mounting a “witch hunt” against Trump in a Fox News interview on Friday (July 21st 2017). “I know Bob Mueller. I trust him and he is an honest man and I think he will call it straight,” Dowd said in an interview. But on Fox, Conway said that the investigation is “all a hoax” and pointed to campaign contributions to Democrats by some of the lawyers working on Mueller’s staff. “These were significant donations by members of that team. They clearly wanted the other person to win,” she said. It “remains to be seen” whether they are prejudiced against Trump, she said.
The White House announced July 16 that it was hiring veteran Washington lawyer Ty Cobb to oversee its legal and media response to the expanding Russia probe. Subsequently the former spokesman for Trump’s legal team, Mark Corallo, confirmed that he had resigned. A person familiar with Corallo’s departure said that he had grown exasperated with the White House’s defense strategy and saw Dowd’s elevation as an opportunity to get out. Corallo declined to discuss his decision.
