US President Donald Trump has lost yet another colleague. The latest in a very, very long line of the people who have either resigned or been fired from the President’s team since he took office early last year is John Dowd, the leading lawyer in Trump’s personal legal team battling the FBI investigation led by Robert Mueller into the potential meddling that the Russian government did in the 2016 US Presidential election, colluding with the Trump team to get him elected.
Unlike a lot of the people to leave Trump’s employ, Dowd doesn’t have any sour feelings against the President, saying in a statement to CNN, “I love the President and wish him well.” Reports say that the resignation stems from a strategical disagreement over the legal battle against Mueller’s FBI probe into the Russian meddling in the election.
The main disagreement was that Dowd has persistently tried to get Trump to be nice to Mueller and Trump refuses to be nice to Mueller.
Trump has been attacking Mueller personally on a regular basis, and he’s doing it through Twitter and TV interviews and press conferences, so word is getting around pretty quickly. Dowd just wanted Trump to cooperate with the FBI’s probe to bring a calm and quick end to this investigation (unless, of course, the President has something to hide), but Trump insists on being difficult through every step of the way. So, now, Trump is not only being stubborn and arrogant enough to irritate the FBI, he’s irritated his top lawyer enough with it that he’s gone and resigned!
Trump refuses to do what he’s told
Trump’s legal strategy with Robert Mueller is to be as aggressive as possible until he backs down, kind of like how a jungle cat might take charge of his pride and assert himself as the alpha male. But that’s not how the judiciary system in the United States works. All Mueller wants is a sit-down interview with President Trump in order to get a few things straight.
He’s hammered out all the key areas he plans to ask him about if the hypothetical meeting goes forward – he’s got four areas to quiz the President about – and now, all he needs is for the interview to be organised. He needs to set a date.
But Trump refuses to sit down with Mueller, which makes it look an awful lot like he has something to hide.
These refusals and angry tirades against Mueller and the FBI that Dowd has time and time again told Trump not to do have finally brought the poor guy to his breaking point, and now, he’s gone and quit his job. Apparently, the President told Dowd that he only speaks for himself and encouraged him to release a public statement of his own, but this led to headlines in the media that indicated internal chaos in Trump’s legal team, so they’ve decided it’ll just be best if they part ways.
The personnel turnover in the Trump administration is ridiculous
Dowd joins former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former top economic adviser Gary Cohn in the long line of people to have left the Trump administration in just this month alone.
Tillerson found out he was being fired through a Twitter post by Trump that said he would be replaced by CIA Director Mike Pompeo – what a way to find out you’re being fired, and by the President of the United States of all people. Cohn, meanwhile, resigned over disagreements about the metal tariffs that were proposed by Trump a few weeks ago.
Dowd’s resignation from the Trump legal team has been described by an unnamed source close to the team as a “mutual decision,” with no hard feelings on either side of the situation. Other sources have said that recently, Trump has been complaining that Dowd isn’t giving the job his all or stepping up to the plate, while Dowd’s close associates have said that he is losing the will and the energy to carry on in such a high-stakes position.
