Trump Considering a D.C. Insider as Counsel to Handle Russia Investigation

The White House is referring all questions about the investigation into Russian meddling the 2016 election, now under the direction of special counsel and former FBI director Robert Mueller, to President Donald Trump's outside counsel, New York litigator Marc Kasowitz. Trump had reportedly considered for the job three other Washington legal hands, including former solicitor general Ted Olson, but ultimately went with Kasowitz, his longtime attorney.

There's reason for Trump, who values loyalty above almost all other qualities, would want Kasowitz in his corner. He's worked for Trump for a decade and a half, for starters. He's also willing to go to the mat for his client. The October 2016 letter to the New York Times threatening legal action against the paper was written on Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman letterhead and signed by the Kasowitz. (The Friedman is David Friedman, who has since left the firm to become Trump's ambassador to Israel.) But is Kasowitz, whose bread and butter is corporate litigation, up for the job of navigating the potentially treacherous waters of Mueller's investigation?

"Marc Kasowitz is a talented litigator, and his firm is very successful," says David Lat, a lawyer and legal writer who runs the blog Above the Law. "But both he and Kasowitz Benson are known for an aggressive, take-no-prisoners approach, and that's not what's called for here."

Trump may be already coming to that realization himself. In his article in the new issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, my colleague Peter Boyer reports the White House is considering bringing in a D.C. heavy hitter to handle the Mueller investigation on behalf of Trump: Steve Brogan, the managing partner at Jones Day.

Brogan would bring to the White House what has been in low supply there: a knowledge of how Washington works. He ran the multinational firm's Washington office from 1989 to 2002, and is known around D.C. as one of the toughest and most ruthless lawyers in a town full of them. If there's anyone in Washington who could serve as a foil to the focused and unsparing Bob Mueller, it's Brogan.