Update: Trump lawyer Sekulow confirms that Mr. Digenova is to join Trump’s legal team.
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As we detailed earlier, in the latest sign that the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe is still a ways off, the New York Times reported Monday that the president has decided to hire another lawyer to his legal team.
Trump is reportedly bringing on Joseph diGenova, a longtime Washington lawyer who has pushed the theory that the FBI and Justice Department framed Trump in their push to remove him from office.
DiGenova isn’t expected to take a lead role, but he is expected to be a “more aggressive player on the president’s legal team”, joining in the middle of negotiations with the special counsel over the parameters of a possible interview with the president.
However, there is a caveat: “The hire has not been announced, and Mr. Trump frequently changes his mind and sometimes adjusts his plans based on media coverage. it was not clear whether Mr. Trump planned to hire other lawyers.”
DiGenova has said during television appearances that a secretive group of FBI agents pulled strings to launch the Russia investigation as a way to stop Trump from becoming president.
“There was a brazen plot to illegally exonerate Hillary Clinton and, if she didn’t win the election, to then frame Donald Trump with a falsely created crime,” he said on Fox News in January. He added,
“Make no mistake about it: A group of FBI and DOJ people were trying to frame Donald Trump of a falsely created crime.“
DiGenova, a former US attorney for Washington DC, has worked in private practice in the district for decades. He was once served as independent counsel during a government waste, fraud and abuse investigation into officials who served during the George HW Bush administration and their search for damaging information on Bill Clinton.
In 1995, the longtime Republican said the investigation into the elder Bush was “unnecessary” and a “Kafkaesque journey for a group of innocent Americans comes to an end.”
The news follows reports that Trump was in talks to hire Emmet T Flood, who represented former President Bill Clinton during his impeachment proceedings. Trump also recently hired Charles Harder, the lawyer who represented Hulk Hogan in his successful defamation lawsuit against Gawker, to assist longtime attorney Michael Cohen in moving a lawsuit against former adult film star Stephanie Clifford – aka Stormy Daniels – into a federal court.
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