As the Robert Mueller Russia probe moves forward Donald Trump's legal team is in tatters.

Jay Sekulow

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

As President Trump heads into one of the most critical phases of the special counsel’s investigation, his personal legal team has shrunk to essentially just one member, and he is struggling to find any top lawyers willing to represent him. 

Working for a president is usually seen as a dream job. But leading white-collar lawyers in Washington and New York have repeatedly spurned overtures to take over the defense of Mr. Trump, a mercurial client who often ignores his advisers’ guidance. In some cases, lawyers’ firms have blocked any talks, fearing a backlash that would hurt business. 

The president lost two lawyers in just the past four days, including one who had been on board for less than a week.

That one remaining lawyer is Jay Sekulow who is essentially a legal spokesperson more than a lawyer at this point, and is wholly unqualified to handle such a complicated and important case.

However Trump's attempts to hire more legal muscle is simply not working out too well.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:

Two more high-power attorneys have had to turn down President Donald Trump. Tom Buchanan and Dan Webb confirmed to The Daily Beast that Trump reached out to them about representing him, and that they couldn’t do it. 

“President Trump reached out to Dan Webb and Tom Buchanan to provide legal representation,” they said in a statement. “They were unable to take on the representation due to business conflicts. However they consider the opportunity to represent the President to be the highest honor and they sincerely regret that they cannot do so. They wish the president the best and believe he has excellent representation in Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow.”

 Actually Ty Cobb's work to produce legal documentation for the Mueller team is essentially finished and there are questions concerning his ability, or his desire to continue to help defend Trump as the walls start closing in.

Remember it was Cobb who said that this investigation would have ended by Thanksgiving 2016.

I actually think that at some point Trump will find a lawyer or two to defend him in this Russia case, but they will likely be one step up from ambulance chasers who will be quickly ground to dust by Mueller's top notch legal eagles.

Trump lawyer says that his client is "very eager" to speak to Robert Mueller, but expresses concern it might be a "perjury trap."

Courtesy of CBS News:  

President Trump's attorney Ty Cobb says the president is "very eager" to speak to special counsel Robert Mueller for his Russia investigation. In an interview with CBS News' chief White House correspondent Major Garrett on this week's "The Takeout" podcast, Cobb said Mr. Trump wants to put the matter to rest, and he told Garrett there are "active discussions" about a special counsel interview, but no formal request has yet been made. 

It is Cobb's belief that the Mueller investigation will ultimately be immaterial to Mr. Trump and his presidency. Cobb said he expects it to be wrapped up in 4-6 weeks. 

"There's a big difference between a shooting star and a planet," Cobb told Garrett, referring to the big headlines for the legal issues of Papadopoulos, Manafort and Flynn. Cobb said he believes these pleas and indictment will not impact the president. 

"I think it's more than appropriate for the Mueller people to explore anything they're interested in," Cobb said. Cobb said he is focused on "getting the facts out." 

But despite this, he said he considers the investigation to be a drag on the presidency. "It's very difficult for him to do anything other than to fight for his place in history," Cobb said. 

Cobb said if Mueller did interview Mr. Trump, it could be a perjury trap -- that is, a situation in which his story does not match the evidence -- something Cobb said "foolish" was not to consider. But Cobb said he has known Mueller for a long time, and doesn't believe that is his aim.

Interesting term "perjury trap."

Is it a "trap" to ask somebody a question to which they then provide a false answer?

Because the simple solution to that is to not fucking lie to the Special Counsel.

But apparently Cobb realizes that his client cannot be expected to do that, so of course he is worried that he will perjure himself.

And do you know what? He is undoubtedly correct.

Trump lawyer claims that Robert Mueller has finished questioning White House witnesses, expects investigation to be over soon and the president to be exonerated.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Special counsel Robert Mueller on Tuesday completed interviews with the last in a slate of about two dozen current and former White House witnesses he’s initially requested as part of the investigation into Russia's actions in the presidential election, White House attorney Ty Cobb said. 

It’s unclear if Mueller will seek follow-up interviews or seek to question additional people beyond the initial batch of witnesses, but the completion of this round of questioning tracks with the goal Cobb has long stated publicly that President Donald Trump’s White House was cooperating with the Russia investigators in search of a speedy resolution to the probe. 

White House attorneys have declined to name specific staffers interviewed, but sources tracking the investigation said people questioned have included former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, presidential spokesman Sean Spicer, White House communications director and former campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks, and current White House counsel Don McGahn. 

Cobb had previously said he expected the interviews to wrap up by Thanksgiving but, as the holiday approached, he backed away from that timeline. Cobb has also said he was looking for Mueller to issue a statement by the end of the year exonerating the president. 

Mueller’s office declined to comment on Cobb’s characterization of the special counsel probe. 

But longtime observers of special counsel cases have cast doubt on Cobb’s timeline.

Cobb has to know that his rosy scenario is pure bullshit, and that most people know it, which indicates to me that his statements are for an audience of one.

I think Cobb is blowing smoke up Donald Trump's skirt just to keep him calm while Mueller finishes the investigation that will end his presidency.

He may know that once Trump realizes how much trouble he is in, that he will completely lose his shit. 

New tactic for Trump lawyers is to make the case that collusion is not a crime.

Ty Cobb

This from The New Yorker: 

For now, Sekulow and Cobb are sticking to their original strategy. They have advertised their willingness to coöperate with Mueller as a sign that Trump has nothing to hide, and their reaction to Flynn’s guilty plea reflects this view. “Nothing about the guilty plea or the charge implicates anyone other than Mr. Flynn,” Cobb said. With regard to Mueller’s broader investigation, the White House lawyers’ position continues to be that President Trump didn’t commit a crime because no one did—or could—because there is no federal crime called “collusion,” and Rosenstein’s order did not refer to any criminal statutes that may have been violated. In several conversations with me, Sekulow emphasized that collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, even if it did take place, wouldn’t be illegal. “For something to be a crime, there has to be a statute that you claim is being violated,” Sekulow told me. “There is not a statute that refers to criminal collusion. There is no crime of collusion.”

Well now that is certainly a different approach.

Just the other day Trump was claiming to reporters that there was no evidence of collusion after the story broke about Michael Flynn's plea deal. 
What the lawyers are saying now kind of sounds like the sovereign citizen argument to me.

"No officer I will not give you my driver's license because I do not recognize your authority to ask for it, and besides speed limits are a deep state conspiracy to control my God given right to drive recklessly."