Day 432: Trump Can’t Find a Lawyer to Represent Him — And He’s Really Insecure About It
As the Mueller investigation ramps up, lawyers are running away from Trump.
One lawyer after another has declined the opportunity to represent Donald Trump amid the Robert Mueller investigation.
Two more joined the parade yesterday. In a statement from their law firm, Winston & Strawn, Dan Webb and Tom Buchanan alleged “business conflicts” for the reason for the declination, though they noted it was “the highest honor” to be considered.
Conflicts can arise when lawyers represent another party in the same or similar matter. For instance, here, a conflict would arise if the attorneys were representing another person facing investigation from Mueller. However, depending on the circumstances — and as is frequently done — a client could waive any conflict claims and allow Trump to be represented by the same counsel.
Winston & Strawn isn’t the first mega-firm with top lawyers to turn down Trump.
It is at least the fifth major law firm to receive a recent invitation to help Trump during Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 campaign’s dealings with Russia. Other lawyers who declined to join Trump’s team include former US Solicitor General Ted Olson; Emmet Flood, who’s worked for multiple presidents; Robert Bennett, Bill Clinton’s attorney in the Paula Jones litigation; and Bob Giuffra, of Sullivan & Cromwell.
The “conflict” claim popped up again last week when it was announced that Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing would join Trump’s team, only to days later bow out. Before agreeing to representation, all lawyers run conflict checks to make sure they don’t run afoul of ethical considerations, making diGenova and Toensing’s post hoc claim of conflict seem odd.
White House lawyers Ty Cobb and Don McGahn work for Trump, but only from the viewpoint of protecting the office of the presidency. John Dowd, who was representing Trump personally, resigned last week, apparently after Trump continued to fail heeding his advice.
Trump is down to just one attorney representing him personally as the Mueller probe continues to ramp up.
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.
As reports piled up over the weekend that Trump was having problems filling out his team, he took to Twitter.
Trump’s tweets are a jumbled word salad that undercut themselves. He claims that lawyers would never turn him down but for conflicts and how a new lawyer would take too long to get up to speed anyway. But Trump is clearly meeting with and vetting new lawyers, so the adequate preparation time doesn’t seem to be a concern. None of the lawyers he’s meeting with are actually joining his team, so the ‘never turning him down’ thing isn’t true either.
And while he’s interviewing bushels of attorneys, he claims he’s very happy with his team. The problem is his “team” consists of two people protecting the office of the presidency — not him personally— and a radio host with no experience on matters anywhere near this substantial.
432 days in, 1030 to go
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