Hours after Ty Cobb’s resignation, Donald Trump loses yet another member of his legal team
Donald Trump has gone through so many legal people when it comes to his failed attempt at defending himself in the Trump-Russia scandal, we’ve nearly lost count. This morning the least incompetent attorney still at Trump’s side, Ty Cobb, announced he was resigning. Now it turns out Trump is also losing another key member of his legal team – and this one might hurt more.
Trump has already announced that Emmet Flood, who once served as Bill Clinton’s impeachment lawyer, is replacing Ty Cobb. But Trump now has another hole to fill, as White House Counsel Don McGahn is also preparing his exit, according to a new report from CNN’s Jim Acosta. This is a big deal because, while the White House Counsel is supposed to represent the legal interests of the White House and not the President, for the most part Trump has misused McGahn as a de facto member of his Trump-Russia defense team. It also lends further credence to what we’ve long suspected: McGahn flipped on Trump a long time ago.
Don McGahn, Reince Priebus, and Sean Spicer are all being represented by the same attorney in the Trump-Russia scandal. By definition this means that all three are employing the same defense. If one of them flips on Trump, they all have to. Otherwise, one or more of them would need to change attorneys. All three have already given lengthy testimony to Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the Trump-Russia scandal. In January the New York Times reported that Priebus had taken copious notes on Trump’s obstruction of justice antics, and had voluntarily given them to Mueller. This meant Priebus had flipped. By default it also meant that Spicer and McGahn had flipped.
This was a remarkable development, considering that while Priebus and Spicer had already resigned, Don McGahn was still working as Donald Trump’s White House Counsel at a time when all signs pointed to him having already flipped on Trump. So it’s not surprising that McGahn is now departing; there was only so long he could pull that off without Trump catching on. Notably, neither McGahn nor Ty Cobb has ever had attorney-client privilege with Trump, because they were both on the White House payroll.
