John Dowd, until this morning the head of Trump’s legal team, has resigned.
The president’s lead lawyer for the special counsel investigation, John Dowd, resigned on Thursday, according to two people briefed on the matter, days after the president called for an end to the inquiry.
Mr. Dowd, who took over the president’s legal team last summer, had considered leaving several times in recent months and ultimately concluded that Mr. Trump was increasingly ignoring his advice, one of the people said. Under Mr. Dowd’s leadership, Mr. Trump’s lawyers had advised him to cooperate with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating Russia’s election interference and possible ties to Trump associates as well as whether the president obstructed the inquiry.
My recollection is that there was a lot of churn on Richard Nixon’s Watergate defense team, as well, though I’m unable to find any online reference.
In spite of the jokes, the lawyers of my acquaintance have always exhibited high ethical standards. We don’t really know what happened between Trump and Dowd, and probably won’t, but I have no difficulty imagining that Dowd is happy to have washed his hands of Trump.