On Wednesday, a newly-released report indicated that President Donald Trump’s new attorney is going to be a significant problem for special counsel Robert Mueller as he reportedly will not allow Mueller to interview the president.
Trump’s new attorney, veteran white-collar defense attorney Emmet Flood, replaces attorney Ty Cobb, who had increasing conflicts with other members of Trump’s legal team. The Daily Beast reports:
Flood’s roots are in the top legal circles and he has extensive experience in high-profile political investigations. He clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia and was a junior lawyer on the team that helped then-President Bill Clinton navigate impeachment proceedings. He went on to the White House Counsel’s office under George W. Bush where he was known for the work he did on the scandal related to the firings of U.S. Attorneys. Members of Congress lambasted that White House for not letting senior staffers Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten testify, and ultimately held the pair in contempt. But the Justice Department declined to prosecute the pair for stiff-arming the Hill and Flood was a central White House lawyer managing that crisis, according to a longtime Washington attorney who knows him.
The Beast reports that an experienced Washington lawyer who has known Flood for years says that there is “no chance” that Flood will let him sit down with Mueller.
“Mueller finally has somebody who’s his match,” the lawyer said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “You’ve got a fair fight now.”
“He comes across like a Columbo-type—unassuming, but the intellect is gargantuan,” the lawyer continued. “I’m frankly surprised that he’s willing to do it. He’s a patriot for stepping up.”
The Beast also noted comments about Flood that came from Norm Eisen, who is “a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, who served as Obama’s special counsel at the time.”
“He’s one of the greats in defending scandals involving government officials. Maybe the best, in my generation,” Eisen said. “These scandals run hot, and he has the gift of cooling them down and slowing them down. It is like the way Neo slows down time in the Matrix to dodge bullets.”
