Uh Oh, Trump Found An Actual Lawyer Who Does Real Law

Bye, Ty!

We're gonna miss that mustache man! Ty Cobb, the president's chief White House lawyer for the Russia investigation, is packing his shit and heading for the exits. SAD!

No more sneak peeks into Trump's legal strategy at popular Washington lunch spots.

Here's a photo of Ty Cobb & John Dowd casually & loudly discussing details of Russia investigation at @BLTSteakDC while I sat at next table. pic.twitter.com/RfX9JLJ0Te 

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) September 18, 2017 

No more hairy nutsack email hijinks or chatty off-the-record stories.

No more candid shots of Cobb working his magic at Dulles airport.

Guess who I saw today?

Leaving DC via Reagan Nat. Airport.

He pulled out two phones and proceeded to loudly talk about how they all needed to be on the same page,Jay and he and Rudy.

He didn’t even try to talk quietly. pic.twitter.com/ubAVFhsMAK 

— MIKE (@trumpanhator) April 23, 2018 

Yes, it's a sad day at the White House. Even Sarah Huckabee Sanders marked the occasion by actually making true words come out of her lie-mouth.

For several weeks Ty Cobb has been discussing his retirement, and last week he let Chief of Staff Kelly know he would retire at the end of this month.

(And then she ate a baby on the White House lawn while the press corps complimented her eye makeup. ALLEGEDLY.)

Cobb told CBS's Major Garrett he's accomplished his mission to hand over all the White House documents without invoking executive privilege, and he will now go home to spend more time with his orthopedic procedures.

It’s been a great honor to serve my country. I am going to be retiring at the end of the month. I have been in discussions with Chief Kelly on that for a few weeks. It’s real. I don’t mind being regarded as a peacemaker. People will think this means we’re going to war but I would not read that into this. This is good for me. I have postponed many orthopedic procedures and basically been living in an attic. It’s been a real sacrifice for me. The president wanted me to stay. The key point is all the documents requested by the Special Counsel were produced by late October. All the interviews with White House personnel were conducted by late January. The bulk of the work was done. It’s easier for me to leave now.

Naturally Rudy Giuliani immediately hopped on the phone with the Washington Post to shout, NOPE, WE FIRED HIS ASS!

“It was just time for him to go, but he’s still going to be available to us,” Giuliani said.

He added that Jay Sekulow, another member of Trump’s legal team, “had the most to do with it.”

“Jay felt he need someone that was more aggressive,” Giuliani said. “That’s not a criticism of Ty, but it’s just about how we’re going to do this.”

Wow, so gentlemanly of Rudy to take one for the team and make Huckabee Sanders look like a decent person!

Cobb is being replaced by Washington attorney Emmet Flood, a man who never even appears on Fox News! But wait, doesn't that name sound familiar? Maybe from that time in March when the NYT reported that Trump was firing Cobb and replacing him with Emmet Flood, after which the President went on his Twitterphone to accuse MAGGIE HABERMAN, A HILLARY FLUNKY, of making the whole story up?

The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out. Wrong. I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow. They are doing a great job and.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 11, 2018 

...have shown conclusively that there was no Collusion with Russia..just excuse for losing. The only Collusion was that done by the DNC, the Democrats and Crooked Hillary. The writer of the story, Maggie Haberman, a Hillary flunky, knows nothing about me and is not given access.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 11, 2018 

Very genius! Much stable!

It's somewhat puzzling that Flood, who is a real-life serious adult lawyer, is taking the job at all. He turned down prior overtures, reportedly because he didn't want to work with the president's colorful personal attorney Marc Kasowitz. But Flood is one of the few attorneys who has the exact expertise Trump needs now, having represented Bill Clinton in the impeachment process, Dick Cheney in the Valerie Plame leak inquiry, and George Bush in negotiations over the scope of executive privilege. Flood also represented Hillary Clinton in the investigation into her email server, a fact which will probably not get much play on Fox News.

Now before you get all excited for one million jokes about how Flood should get cash upfront, let's be clear. You are the one paying Emmet Flood's bill! He's replacing Cobb as a White House employee, and he won't have the same level of privilege as Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, Trump's outside counsel.

So, will Flood be taking Steve Bannon's expert legal advice and retroactively invoking executive privilege to get back all those documents Cobb turned over to Mueller? LOL, NO! Emmet Flood clerked for Antonin Fucking Scalia, and he does not have time for this bullshit.

Although Bannon is already out there Bannon-ing, of course. 

BANNON in Post intvw: "Cobb was a mistake, totally incompetent and in over his head. He was obsessed with this radical fantasy of waiving executive privilege... It was truly stupid... failed to realize that there would never be, could never be a special relationship" w/ Mueller

— Robert Costa (@costareports) May 2, 2018 

Our guess is that Flood will take a much harder line on cooperation with Robert Mueller's investigation. If Mueller is threatening to subpoena the president, Flood is the guy with the legal chops to fight that subpoena in court. Giuliani can run his mouth on television, but Flood has actual experience negotiating the parameters of a witness interview with a special prosecutor. He doesn't strike us as someone whose plan is to burn down the Justice Department to make his client look less guilty in comparison. He's actually a competent lawyer who might, MIGHT be able to bring a coherent legal strategy to the White House.

Which is pretty fucking dangerous.

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[ WaPo / NYT ]