President Donald Trump's legal defense team is floating a new strategy as the Russia investigation reaches a critical point: calling for a second special counsel tasked with investigating perceived anti-Trump bias and conflicts of interest within the FBI and the Department of Justice.
Axios reported that the move was prompted by a Fox News article which said that senior DOJ official Bruce Ohr's wife worked during the 2016 election for Fusion GPS — the firm that produced the Steele dossier, an explosive collection of memos detailing Trump's alleged Russia ties. Ohr was demoted last week for failing to disclose that he met with some individuals who were behind the dossier's production.
"The Department of Justice and FBI cannot ignore the multiple problems that have been created by these obvious conflicts of interests. These revelations require the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate," Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's personal defense lawyers, told Axios.
It's unclear whether the president's defense lawyers — White House lawyer Ty Cobb and personal defense attorneys Sekulow and John Dowd — want the DOJ, the FBI, both, or specific individuals within the agencies to be investigated.
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Cobb did not respond to a request for comment. Dowd replied "yes" when asked whether he believed a second special counsel should be appointed and directed all other questions to Sekulow. Sekulow referred to his original statement to Axios and did not respond to follow-up questions.
The obstruction question takes center stage
Trump's legal team's new course of action in the Russia probe comes on the heels of multiple reports indicating that special counsel Robert Mueller is drilling down on one of the main threads in the Russia investigation: whether Trump sought to obstruct justice when he fired FBI Director James Comey in May.
NBC News reported Monday that investigators are focused on the 18-day period between when the White House was first warned that national security adviser Michael Flynn was vulnerable to Russian blackmail, and when he was forced to resign. A Washington Post report on Tuesday said lawyers for other witnesses in the Russia probe told Cobb that prosecutors asked "detailed questions" about Comey's firing, which led them to believe Mueller is focusing on gathering evidence around the obstruction question.
Comey was overseeing the Russia investigation when he was dismissed, and his abrupt firing came three months after a private Oval Office meeting in which Trump asked him to consider "letting" Flynn "go." Flynn was forced to resign after it emerged that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak during the transition period. Comey gave no indication that he would consider Trump's request.
Trump and his defenders have also latched onto a string of damaging reports in recent days as evidence of bias either within Mueller's team or the DOJ as a whole.
The special counsel's office has so far charged four individuals in Trump's orbit as part of the Russia investigation: Flynn, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former campaign adviser and Manafort associate Rick Gates, and early foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos.
As Mueller and his investigators move forward, Trump's defense team, led by Cobb, has largely signaled a willingness to cooperate with Mueller and in the hope for a speedy and swift conclusion.
Cobb has also reportedly been successful at convincing Trump the investigation will wrap up soon: first, he said it would end by Thanksgiving, then by Christmas, and later by early next year. Legal experts dispute that timeline, saying it will likely take much longer for an investigation of this size and scope to end.
Trump's lawyers' calls for a second special counsel, according to Axios, are not related to Mueller as much as to perceived bias in the FBI and DOJ as a whole.
But the timing of the strategy indicates that the president's defense team is aware that the investigation may soon touch the White House and Trump himself.
"We didn't hear this when Papadopoulos or Manafort were indicted," Cramer said. "We only hear it now because it's getting close to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and that's why they're working to discredit investigators."