Government

Ty Cobb Out, Emmet Flood In, Constitutional Crisis Looms

Trump's most reasonable lawyer is leaving the team. There is no way this ends well.

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Ty Cobb

Yesterday, we speculated on why Trump lawyers leaked what appears to be their own attorney work-product about the possible questions Robert Mueller wants to ask Donald Trump. Today, a big shoe dropped that might shed some light on Trump’s true intentions.

From the New York Times:

President Trump plans to hire Emmet T. Flood, the veteran Washington lawyer who represented Bill Clinton during his impeachment, to replace Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer who has taken the lead in dealing with the special counsel investigation, who is retiring, according to two people briefed on the matter.

In a phone interview, Mr. Cobb said he informed the president weeks ago that he wanted to retire. He said he planned to stay at the White House, likely through the end of the month, to help Mr. Flood transition into the new job.

Ty Cobb is the only Trump lawyer who hasn’t had his reputation totally ruined by association with Trump. And, to illustrate how low that bar is, Ty Cobb is the same guy who noisily talked about hidden documents while out at lunch. That’s the guy that’s been Trump’s “best” lawyer.

Ty Cobb has been all about cooperation with the Mueller investigation. He’s been a voice of reason. He’s been working with Mueller to set up the conditions under which Trump could sit down for an interview about all those recently leaked topics. It is thought that Cobb would have suggested submitting to a subpoena, should it come to that.

Getting rid of Cobb suggests a far more aggressive posture towards the investigation. When coupled with the fact that Trump is making noises that Mueller has exceeded the scope of his investigative mandate, it certainly seems like Team Trump is planning to use those questions to argue that any Mueller subpoena would exceed his mandate. Joe Patrice, who called this yesterday, has explained how ridiculous it is for Trump’s team to use questions that they themselves wrote to argue that Mueller is out of bounds. But we live in crazy world.

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If Trump doesn’t voluntarily sit down, then Mueller will have to subpoena. Without Cobb around, it certainly seems like that subpoena will be fought by Trump all the way up to the Supreme Court… on which currently sits a 9th justice hand-picked by Trump who sits in stolen seat.

Our slow-moving constitutional crisis could turn into a full-on train wreck soon enough.

But, then there’s Emmet Flood. We can’t yet know what his plan is, but we do know that Flood represented Clinton during his legal battles. And we also know that Clinton was subpoenaed, and Clinton eventually submitted to an interview which caused Ken Starr to pull back the subpoena. So we don’t actually know how Emmet Flood is going to want to play this.

Still, it’s Donald Trump. We should already know that he will be willing to do anything to save himself and keep himself in power. He doesn’t care about the Constitution. He doesn’t care about the justice system. He’s likely willing to use all of his power to protect himself.

Ty Cobb was a voice against burning the whole thing down. Now… he’s gone.

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Trump to Add Clinton Impeachment Lawyer Emmet Flood to Replace Ty Cobb [New York Times]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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