He has publicly called the Russia probe a ‘witch hunt,’ but now President Trump is being advised to take a tougher line on special counsel Robert Mueller, as some allies fret that the president’s lawyers are being outmaneuvered.
Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer who is advising the president as he weathers the Russia investigation, has generally been urging cooperation with document requests, while providing assurances that the probe will be wrapping up soon.
Cobb told the New Yorker: ‘I feel most of the time like a second-year associate, because all I do is produce documents.’
‘My approach has been principally to accelerate the production of documents and the availability of witnesses to the fullest extent I can, with the hope of getting rid of this cloud that hampers the President in foreign policy, in domestic policy, and has the country confused and experiencing a malaise,’ he said in comments that followed former national security advisor Mike Flynn’s guilty plea to lying to the FBI.’
President Trump is being advised to take a tougher line on special counsel Robert Mueller
‘I think I’ve got a willing partner in Mueller, who also understands the importance of his task and the impact that it has on the Presidency,’ he sad.
Some Trump advisors see this as a dangerous path.
‘The president’s lawyers are sleepwalking their client into the abyss,’ informal Trump advisor Roger Stone, told the Wall Street Journal.
Stone himself has been swept up in the probe, and was interviewed by congressional investigators about his communications with WikiLeaks during the campaign.
He added: ‘They are entirely unrealistic about the enmity toward the president from the political establishment and the established order.’
Mueller critics got more ammunition, as the report revealed special counsel investigator Andrew Weissmann had attended Hillary Clinton’s ‘victory party’ in New York on election night, citing people familiar with his attendance.
At the Thursday White House press briefing, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to take a shot at Mueller, focusing her attention on fired FBI director James Comey.
Trump’s legal team has generally been complying with Mueller’s document requests and downplaying the guilty pleas and prosecutions of former advisors
But some House Republicans have taken an aggressive turn in their treatment of the Mueller investigation.
At a hearing with FBI Director Christopher Wray Thursday, House Judiciary Committee chairman Robert Goodlatte went after ‘bias’ among investigators – even referring to Mueller as the ‘current’ special counsel.
‘Reports on the bias of some of the career agents and lawyers on current special counsel Mueller’s team are also deeply troubling to a system of blind and equal justice,’ said Goodlatte. ‘Investigations must not be tainted by individuals imposing their own personal political opinions.’
Republican Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio said the ‘depths of this anti-Trump bias’ on the Mueller team was ‘absolutely shocking.’
Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett unloaded on the probe in a televised take-down, calling the probe ‘illegitimate and corrupt.”
‘I think I’ve got a willing partner in Mueller, who also understands the importance of his task and the impact that it has on the Presidency,’ White House lawyer Ty Cobb told the New Yorker
President Donald Trump has called the probe a ‘witch hunt’
Andrew Weissman, one of Mueller’s top investigators, was revealed by the Wall Street Journal to have attended Hillary Clinton’s election night party at the Javit’s Center in 2016
Speaking after revelations about the reassignment of FBI lawyer Peter Strzok for anti-Trump taxes, he said: ‘Mueller has been using the FBI as a political weapon,” and charged: “The FBI has become America’s secret police.’
There was more anti-Mueller fodder on Fox when conservative commentator Laura Ingraham went after Mueller investigator Jeannie Rhee and other team members for ‘brazen partisanship.’ Rhee in the past represented the Clinton Foundation and former Obama advisor Ben Rhodes.
‘What Mueller did was hire a pedigree team of obvious partisans,’ Ingraham said. ‘They should all step aside,’ she continued, ‘including Bob Mueller.’
Trump also is personally represented by laywers John Dowd and Jay Sekulow.
Dowd said it was he who wrote President Trump’s tweet following Flynn’s guilty plea.
‘I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI,’ Trump said in the tweet. ‘He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!’