For Newest Lawyer, Trump Picks Fierce Critic of Mueller's Probe
Trump Adds DiGenova to Legal Team After Attacks on Mueller Probe
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump is adding lawyer Joseph diGenova to the legal team defending him in Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling, after the president lashed out at the special counsel over the weekend.
DiGenova has publicly attacked Mueller’s investigation and the FBI, saying he believes Trump was framed by Justice Department officials on a political vendetta. He also has advocated for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees Mueller’s work, to be removed and appointed as a judge. DiGenova will start later this week, said Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow.
Criticism of the Russia investigation by diGenova, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, is a break from Trump’s current lawyers who have largely refrained from publicly attacking Mueller and taken a posture of cooperation.
But Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with the investigation and made his first direct attacks on Mueller and his team over the weekend after another Trump lawyer, John Dowd, called for shutting down the investigation into possible collusion between the president’s campaign and Russia.
White House lawyer Ty Cobb issued a statement on Sunday evening saying Trump “is not considering or discussing the firing of Mueller,” and a senior Republican senator said Monday evening that proposed legislation to protect the special counsel isn’t necessary.
“I know Mueller well and believe him to be a straight shooter, and I continue to believe that giving Mueller the time and support necessary to get to the bottom of things is in the best interest of all parties involved,” Orrin Hatch of Utah said in a statement. “My conversations with the White House have led him me to believe legislation is not necessary at this point because I do not believe the president would take such a foolish action.”
Trump’s legal team recruited deGenova after determining that issues surrounding Mueller’s probe had reached the point where they needed additional help, particularly as negotiations continue for the president to be interviewed by Mueller, said a person familiar with the matter. The addition of diGenova extends to his firm, diGenova & Toensing LLP, though it’s not immediately clear how many lawyers that would include.
Unsubstantiated Claims
DiGenova has been a prominent critic of the Russia investigation, appearing frequently on Fox News and other conservative outlets. He has accused the Obama administration of initiating the probe in order to hurt Trump.
“There was a brazen plot by senior officials at DOJ and the FBI in the Obama administration and senior Obama administration intelligence officials to exonerate Hillary Clinton falsely and then to frame Donald Trump if Hillary lost the election,” he said on Fox News on March 6.
There is no evidence the claim is true.
In an interview this month with the Daily Caller, he said FBI officials “plotted to ruin” Trump as a candidate and “destroy him as a president,” claims that are also unsubstantiated. He called Trey Gowdy, the House Oversight chairman and a top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, a “fruit cake” and said Rosenstein is “afraid of his own shadow” and complained he hadn’t done a better job reining in Mueller, in an interview this month on radio station WMAL.
Trump Aims Directly at Mueller in Ramped-Up Criticism of Probe
The naming of diGenova comes amid tensions between Trump and his legal team, who have advocated for Trump to resist his combative instincts with regard to the investigation. But that strategy appeared to shift with the statements over the weekend from Dowd and Trump calling for an end to the investigation. It took more than 24 hours for Cobb to issue his statement saying Trump had no plans to fire Mueller.
His addition to Trump’s team is also a signal that Trump’s lawyers don’t see the probe ending soon. Cobb said since the summer that the investigation wouldn’t stretch beyond the end of 2017.
“I have worked with Joe for many years and have full confidence that he will be a great asset in our representation of the president,” said Sekulow, who like diGenova has been publicly chipping away at Mueller’s investigation.
Speculation that Trump was planning a legal team shakeup had swirled since The New York Times reported that former Clinton lawyer Emmet Flood had met with Trump as he was planning to add to his legal team. Trump called the report a “false story.”
“I am VERY happy with my lawyers,” Trump said on Twitter. “They are doing a great job.”
Multiple Clients
DiGenova’s firm, which he started with his wife Victoria Toensing, is representing several other clients involved in the Russia investigations, including Trump campaign aide Sam Clovis and the former spokesman for Trump’s legal team Mark Corallo. Toensing is also representing Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater Security Consulting and an informal Trump adviser. DiGenova and Toensing didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
DiGenova’s work for Trump may come under Mueller’s scrutiny. While it’s not unusual for an attorney to have several clients in the same matter, the clients must agree that their interests are served. Such agreements may be severed in the event the clients end up in a position to testify against each other.
William Burck, a former federal prosecutor, is representing three prominent figures involved in the Trump probes -- White House Counsel Don McGahn, former strategist Steve Bannon and former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.
Burck’s representation of all three was approved by Mueller, according to a person familiar with the matter.
In November, Mueller and the Justice Department asked judges to review a potential conflict of interest involving a lawyer for Rick Gates, who was accused of money laundering with campaign chair Paul Manafort. The lawyer also represents a California man accused of fraud and who has a longstanding personal and business relationship with Gates.
After questioning Gates and the California defendant, the judges determined that the lawyer could represent both men. Gates later changed his lawyer and has since pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s probe.
‘Valuable Civics Lesson’
DiGenova is well worn in the world of Washington investigations. He served as an independent counsel who concluded that officials under former President George H.W. Bush didn’t commit a crime in 1992 when they searched then President-elect Bill Clinton’s passport files. DiGenova was named as a special counsel in 1997 to probe the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and was hired by the New York State Senate to investigate Democratic Governor Elliot Spitzer.
He was an outspoken critic of Clinton during the Whitewater investigations and advocated for his indictment.
“The nation, in fact, could conceivably benefit from the indictment of a president,” diGenova said in a 1997 Wall Street Journal interview. “It would teach the valuable civics lesson that no one is above the law.”
--With assistance from Tom Schoenberg David Voreacos and Steven T. Dennis
To contact the reporters on this story: Shannon Pettypiece in Washington at spettypiece@bloomberg.net, Margaret Talev in Washington at mtalev@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net.
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