Lawyers sound nervous
BY TINA NGUYEN
AUGUST 7, 2017 10:42 AM
Back in June, Donald Trump was still treating the Russia investigation like some sort of defamation suit, one of a countless number of lawsuits that Trump has been involved in over the years. The first attorney he retained to lead his legal team, Marc Kasowitz, was his longtime personal lawyer from his New York real-estate days, and he responded as if former F.B.I. director James Comey’s sworn Senate testimony was just another meritless claim he could dismiss with a cease-and-desist letter. "Comey’s excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged information . . . appears to be entirely retaliatory," Kasowitz said in a statement at the time, reflexively going on the offensive ...
Two months later, the Russia probe looks much more serious—and Trump’s lawyers appear to be treading much more carefully. Kasowitz, who was busted sending an unhinged e-mail sent to a total stranger .. has stepped down, and Ty Cobb, a mustachioed Washington super-lawyer, has taken over. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has impaneled a grand jury, and Jay Sekulow, who occupies the role of Trump’s "TV lawyer," defending the president on news shows, has apparently tempered his rhetoric.
The reboot appears to be happening on several levels as Trump’s team work to prevent any additional attacks on Mueller, Comey, or other people central to the investigation, that might be perceived as attempts to obstruct the Russia probe ...
The retreat, such as it is, also reflects a daunting political reality for Trump’s team: Despite their best efforts, they’re dealing with a client who is almost pathologically incapable of telling the same story twice. When he fired Comey, Trump made his situation worse by offering a constantly evolving set of justifications for his dismissal. A similar problem arose when Sekulow went from claiming that Trump played no role in crafting Donald Trump Jr.’s misleading statement about his infamous meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower last year, to the White House claiming that Trump helped "as any father would" ...
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/08/trump-legal-strategy-russia-investigation
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