When the White House’s lawyer needs a lawyer, it’s safe to say the Trump-Russia scandal has reached a new level.
President Trump’s former chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and White House counsel Donald McGahn have reportedly hired the same lawyer to represent them in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. William Burck, a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and a co-chair of the firm’s white-collar investigations, will be advising the pair, Law360 reports. […]
Burck previously served as a White House deputy counsel and is a former prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan.
The full Law360 report, which is only available to its paid subscribers, is online here.
All of this, of course, follows the news from late Friday, which Rachel noted on the show, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has notified the White House of his intention to interview several top members of Donald Trump’s team. The Washington Post reported that among the personnel are Priebus, former press secretary Sean Spicer, and White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, each of whom may be witnesses to “several episodes relevant to the investigation of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.” (Hicks has also reportedly lawyererd up.)
We don’t yet know when the interviews will happen, but based on the reporting, Mueller and his team will want to chat with these current and former officials once investigators have a chance to review all of the documents that have been requested.
And why is all of this so significant? I’m glad you asked.
As Rachel explained on Friday night, if we consider what materials have been requested, and who’s going to be interviewed, we can “triangulate” and get a sense of where things are headed. Watch the clip.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."