March 11, 2018

Trump Just Lashed Out at NYT’s Report on Turmoil in His Legal Team

“I am VERY happy with my lawyers,” the president tweeted.

Brian Cahn/Zuma

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On Sunday morning, President Trump once again took to Twitter to lash out at the New York Times. This time, his target was the paper’s report that he met with President Clinton’s impeachment lawyer, Emmet Flood, in the Oval Office last week to discuss hiring him to handle matters in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. 

Trump currently has White House lawyer Ty Cobb in charge of the inquiry, after his longtime personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz stepped aside last summer. Flood was one of a half-dozen top litigators Trump reportedly tried to hire to replace Kasowitz last year, but they all turned down the job. 

Maggie Haberman, the New York Times White House correspondent who co-wrote the story with Michael Schmidt, immediately responded.

Trump then turned his focus directly on Haberman, making good on the promise of the ellipsis that concluded his (at this point nine-minute-old) tweet.

Trump’s attacks come as he’s ignored his own lawyers’ advice to steer clear of the special counsel investigation. As recently as this week, Mueller learned that on at least two occasions Trump asked key witnesses about their conversations with investigators. In one case, Trump asked White House counsel Don McGahn to deny reporting that the president wanted him to fire Mueller last year, and on another occasion, Trump reportedly asked his former chief of staff Reince Priebus if his interviewers were “nice.”

Maggie Haberman responded:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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