Defending Trump in Russia probe? It's hardly a dream job

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Defending Trump in Russia probe? It's hardly a dream job

2018-04-18 12:44 Last Updated At：18:06

Several prominent lawyers asked to help represent President Donald Trump in the last year have spurned the assignment at least partly out of concerns he wouldn't pay his bills and doesn't listen to legal advice, according to people familiar with the conversations.

The result is that as investigators intensify their focus on the president's inner circle, including his personal lawyer, Trump has been left with a lean legal team that has struggled to add criminal defense firepower. Though more lawyers may come aboard soon, Trump has time and again struck out in landing some of Washington's most notable attorneys. The extra help may be especially needed in the critical months ahead, as special counsel Robert Mueller seeks an interview with Trump and reaches conclusions on whether the president engaged in obstruction of justice.

That Trump does not have multiple brand-name criminal defense lawyers is startling since, in ordinary circumstances, representing the president in a hugely consequential legal fight would be a dream assignment. President Bill Clinton, for instance, was navigated through the Whitewater scandal by lawyers from Williams & Connolly, one of Washington's most highly regarded firms.

At least one lawyer who was approached but rejected the opportunity made clear that he'd expect Trump to refrain from discussing the investigation on social media, according to a lawyer familiar with the exchange who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential client matters. That admonition has apparently gone unheeded.

In at least one other case, a major law firm that contemplated an overture to one of its lawyers was turned off by the idea of a "client who attacks the essence of our legal system" and concern that "he treats his lawyers like vendors he can avoid paying," according to one person at the firm who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential client matters.

That perception arises from a multitude of lawsuits Trump and his business entities have faced from lawyers, real estate brokers and others over unpaid bills. Just one example: A Florida golf club owned by Trump recently agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement with former members who said the club refused to refund their deposits.

"Obviously this is an unusual situation because it's perfectly obvious that Mr. Trump likes to be his own lawyer, and lawyers have to be concerned about their own reputation. And I'm sure that factors into their thinking," said Bill Jeffress, once part of President Richard Nixon's legal team.

On any lawyer's mind, Jeffress said: "Are your statements to the prosecutors going to be undercut by your client's tweet the next morning?"

Aside from any personal misgivings, many law firms already represent witnesses in the Mueller investigation and would have untenable conflicts in representing Trump, too. Practically speaking, a bank or financial institution that can guarantee multimillion-dollar payments to a law firm often makes for a more desirable client than an individual with more limited resources.

Trump's legal team is led by Jay Sekulow, a conservative lawyer and radio talk show host with deep experience in constitutional law and in arguing religious liberty cases before the Supreme Court. He says that experience is essential because he believes the case against Trump turns on core constitutional, rather than criminal, questions.

Sekulow has been assisted by other lawyers with ties to the American Center for Law and Justice, but also works closely with Ty Cobb, a former prosecutor with criminal defense experience who for months has represented the White House in its dealings with Mueller's team.

Other lawyers do work for Trump, too, and the Russia team could well grow in coming weeks.

Still, Trump's legal team has been marked by evolving strategies and turmoil in the last year.

It was initially led by Marc Kasowitz, a hard-charging New York lawyer who has long been in Trump's corner but is better known for commercial litigation than criminal defense. The initial strategy involved pushing back hard against Mueller's investigation, including by researching potential conflicts on Mueller's team that could be used to seek his disqualification.

But he took on a reduced role in favor of John Dowd, an experienced criminal defense lawyer who, despite having once extended a middle finger to a reporter who approached him outside a courthouse, had for a period advocated a more conciliatory approach. Yet he raised eyebrows last month with a written statement calling for Mueller's probe to be shut down.

Dowd abruptly left after Trump tried to bring aboard Joe diGenova, a former U.S. attorney and TV pundit who has advocated firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. But that plan was stymied because of diGenova's conflicts — his law office represents other witnesses in the Mueller investigation, including Mark Corallo, a former spokesman for the Trump legal team.

Among other heavyweight lawyers who've been considered are Reid Weingarten, who's represented executives from BP and WorldCom, and A.B. Culvahouse, the White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan. Dan Webb, a former U.S. attorney who's represented General Electric and Philip Morris, passed because of a business conflict.

Ted Olson, one of the country's best-known lawyers and a former solicitor general who, among other matters, argued the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court case and a landmark California same-sex marriage case, was contacted last year and more recently. His firm passed both times.

That firm, Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, also represents the political opposition research firm behind a dossier of allegations of Trump's ties to Russia.

Any client benefits from lawyers with criminal defense savvy and experience negotiating with prosecutors in complex investigations, said George Washington University law professor Stephen Saltzburg.

"In theory, it shouldn't matter," he said. "Any lawyer should be able to negotiate, but in practice, people who know which buttons to push negotiate a lot better."

Hope Hicks, ex-Trump adviser, recounts political firestorm in 2016 over 'Access Hollywood' tape

2024-05-04 01:08 Last Updated At：01:10

NEW YORK (AP) — Hope Hicks, a former adviser to Donald Trump, took the stand Friday at the former president's hush money trial and recounted how his 2016 campaign became embroiled in a political firestorm over a recording in which he boasted about grabbing women without their permission.

Hicks, who served as White House communications director, is the first close Trump adviser to testify in the case, which accuses the Republican former president of a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by silencing women who claimed to have sexual encounters with him.

Prosecutors contend that the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, which emerged just days before a debate, jolted Trump’s campaign and hastened his then-lawyer Michael Cohen’s hush money deal with porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about claims she had a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.

Hicks described being deeply concerned after learning about the tape's existence from a Washington Post reporter seeking comment about it. She huddled with other Trump advisers and read some of the transcript of the tape to Trump, she testified.

“I had a good sense to believe this was going to be a massive story and that it was going to dominate the news cycle for the next several days,” Hicks testified. “This was a damaging development."

Trump has denied the allegations of extramarital sexual encounters. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee for this year denies any wrongdoing in the case.

Hicks, who is is testifying for the prosecution under a subpoena, acknowledged she was “really nervous” after stepping up to the microphone. Referring to her former boss as “Mr. Trump,” she told the court she last communicated with him in the summer or fall of 2022.

While no longer in Trump's inner circle, Hicks spoke about the former president in glowing terms as the prosecutor began questioning her about her background. Hicks complimented Trump multiple times in the first few minutes of her testimony, describing him as a “very good multitasker, a very hard worker.”

Hicks served as Trump’s 2016 campaign press secretary and was one of a small number of early campaign staffers who joined his administration.

Former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, the prosecution's star witness, has yet to take the stand in the hush money trial. But jurors are already hearing Cohen's words as prosecutors work to directly tie Trump to payments to silence women with damaging claims about him before the 2016 election.

The second week of testimony in the case will wrap up Friday, a day after jurors heard a potentially crucial piece of evidence: a recording of Trump and Cohen discussing a plan to pay off an ex-Playboy model who claimed to have an affair with Trump. The former president denies the affair.

Prosecutors have spent the week using detailed testimony about meetings, email exchanges, business transactions and bank accounts to build on the foundation of their case accusing Trump of a scheme to illegally influence the election. They are setting the stage for pivotal testimony from Cohen, who paid Daniels $130,000 for her silence before he went to prison for the hush money scheme.

Trump's defense has worked to poke holes in the credibility of prosecution witnesses and to show that Trump was trying to protect his reputation and family — not his campaign — by keeping the women quiet. The defense also suggested while questioning an attorney who represented two women in hush money negotiations that Trump was, in fact, the victim of extortion.

The recording played Thursday was secretly made by Cohen shortly before the 2016 election. Cohen is heard telling Trump about a plan to purchase the rights to former Playboy model Karen McDougal’s story from the National Enquirer so that it would never come out. The tabloid had previously bought McDougal’s story to bury it on Trump’s behalf.

In the recording, Cohen revealed that he had spoken to then-Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg about “how to set the whole thing up with funding.”

Trump can be heard responding: “What do we got to pay for this? One-fifty?”

Trump suggested the payment be made with cash, prompting Cohen to object by repeatedly saying “no." Trump then says “check” before the recording cuts off.

Prosecutors played the recording after calling to the stand Douglas Daus, a forensic analyst from the Manhattan district attorney’s office who performed analyses on iPhones Cohen turned over to authorities during the investigation. Daus returned to the stand Friday morning.

Jurors also heard more than six hours of crucial testimony this week from Keith Davidson, a lawyer who represented McDougal and Daniels in their negotiations with Cohen and the National Enquirer — the tabloid that bought and buried negative stories in an industry practice known as “catch and kill.” Davidson on Thursday described being shocked that his hidden-hand efforts might have contributed to Trump winning the 2016 election.

“What have we done?” Davidson texted the then-editor of the National Enquirer on election night when it became clear that Trump was going to win. “Oh my god,” the tabloid editor responded.

“There was an understanding that our efforts may have in some way — strike that — our activities may have in some way assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump,” Davidson told jurors.

Trump’s lawyers sought to blunt the potential harm of Davidson’s testimony by getting him to acknowledge that he never had any interactions with Trump — only Cohen. In fact, Davidson said, he had never been in the same room as Trump until his testimony.

“I had no personal interactions with Donald Trump. It either came from my clients, Mr. Cohen or some other source, but certainly not him,” Davidson said.

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying internal Trump Organization business records. The charges stem from paperwork such as invoices and checks that were deemed legal expenses in Trump Organization records. Prosecutors say they were really reimbursements to Cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment to Daniels.

Defending Trump in Russia probe? It's hardly a dream job

News

Defending Trump in Russia probe? It's hardly a dream job

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