Mueller Talks Continue Amid Trump Legal Team Reshuffle

and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Just after signing a one point three trillion dollar budget at the White House last week, reporters as President Trump if he would like to testify in Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, to testify the Special counsel Robert Muller, Sir, thank you would like

for borrow on this story. We're joined now by Greg Ferrell, Bloomberg News investigative legal reporter, and Greg, the President says he would like to, but it's a it's a it's a lot of distance between liking to and actually doing it.

What's your latest reporting on this story? Yesterday afternoon about how negotiates between Trump's legal team, UM What's left of It and the Mueller camp are continuing around this as you know, UH, Trump's lead outside lawyer, John John Dowd quit UM UH last week in part over the issue of whether or not the President should sit down with UH Special counsel Robert Mueller, and uh, there's a real you know, there's there's this happens a lot in legal issues,

where there's a real divergence or a real contradiction between what the legally proper the smartest legal move to take and what you know, what the optics of that going to are going to be. Uh. John Dowd recommended against in any way, shape or form a meeting with Mueller. Um, because any kind of slip up or or or you know, misstatement or exaggeration, uh, you know, could be construed as uh, you know, lying and um. But I think the President understands that if he doesn't, if he refused to sit

down with Mueller, it will look bad. So there's this sort of built in contradiction between you know, the optics of the White House wanting to you know, appear like the cooperating fully and wanting to let you know, and they have nothing to be afraid of because, as the President has said, he's done nothing wrong and the legal

imperative of protecting your client sore. Trump Y, you had mentioned that, uh, you know, the shrinking legal team, so Trump doesn't have a white collar or a government investigations lawyer who's experienced in dealing with this type of high profile, very sensitive investigation interview and the ramifications. How much of a problem is that for him? Well, they say it's not much of a problem because they're a big team of people under Jay Seculo. Uh and some support from

you know, the Casuits law firm, which is back. But Uh, there's two two issues for them. One, Um, you know, they it would help to have someone who specializes in criminal white collar defense out and they don't have that now Casuits as a superb lawyer, but he's a civil lawyer. Um. Uh. And at the same time, Um, you know that they realized, from a public relations point of view, it doesn't look good for the story to be out there that the president is underrepresented by a lawyer. So I think their

plan is to to bring someone in. They don't need someone tomorrow or by Monday, but over the next few weeks they want to bring someone in who sort of plugs that hall. You know, if you will baseball starting, they need a first basement someone who they can put in that spot. Um. Even though they say they're fine for now, why is the team had such a hard time putting the rest of the team together. Well, it's

another contradiction here. One Uh, most lawyers in general would like kill for the opportunity to represent the president of the United States and a major constitutional issue um Trump. However, and this is proven to be, if not toxic, a lot of you know, both face named lawyers in Washington are avoiding him some. This in part is I think political that they don't necessarily agree with him, But I

think more importantly is he's a very difficult client. You know, you can tell him and try to come up with a strategy of what you know should be done, and he'll go off and do his own thing. He'll undercut himself sometimes by giving an interview or a tweet that sort of uh conflicts with what the legal advice is.

That's one of the reasons Mark Hoswits left last summer is that reportedly he was cut out of the decision making process, you know, intentionally shut out of what the president's response was to a report that his son Don Junior met with some Russians at the Trump Tower to talk about dirt for Hillary. And you know, he's just a difficult client. And Greg, does he do you think he has any idea he's used to civil litigation in

New York. How any idea, how an interview with these experienced, aggressive, well prepared lawyers on Mueller's team or Mueller himself would be like, right, this is something I think the president has never been up against because, as you point out, yes, he's a veteran of you know, litigation, litigation wars in New York, of a real estate etcetera. Um, And he's prone to exaggeration because that's part of the business. He's a successful in real estate in part because of his

he's a good talker, he sells well. Um, that's a compliment. Um. But you're entering a world where any false statement is potentially like a criminal act. So that's what John Dowd, his lawyer, was I'm sure concerned about. And uh, you know, and again part of Trump's particular, you know, charizba, is that he's irrepressible. He goes off and says things, he doesn't stay to the script. Um. And uh, that's for the first time. He's in a dangerous place with that

streightmare for lawyers, a nightmare for his lawyers. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely exactly. But let me but there's something let me question this premise. I mean, yeah, yeah, you're right. He the president has a reputation for being on disciplined and tweeting and everything else, but he seems to have shown

pretty strong discipline in this controversy over Stormy Daniels. Yes, but you know that's you know, for a few days, I think we've we've seen you know, John Kelly has been uh, you know, has had success and then lack of success during last summer and getting the President's day off reporter, and then it changes. So maybe true, maybe he's suddenly gotten religion. Maybe at his age, he's suddenly you know, has become the man that his previous lawyers want him to be. But you know, let's see, at

time passes. It's been one week, so well, maybe he understands the stakes with Mueller. And that's so that that's why I was asking. You know, I still I still think, you know, he's facing these lawyers and he has a tendency to fill in the gaps and to keep talking. And lawyers love that, right opposition lawyers your own lawyer, yes, exactly. Um, he loved to build a vacuum. He uh, you know,

clearly thrives on being the star of the show. And that's not what you want, you know, in that type of uh circumstance, you want someone who sticks to the script, keeps it almost monosyllabic. That's what the negotiations right now is about, is like the different areas that Mueller wants to talk about. Got it all right, Greig Farrell, Bloomberg News investigative legal reporter, Thank you so much. Now let's

take a look at the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court took its second look at partisan jerrymandering this term. But the second look doesn't seem to have clarified the issue or the solution for the justices. The Justices expressed broad concerns about a Maryland congressional district that Democrats acknowledge was drawn to outs to GOP lawmaker. The solution was

far from clear. Joining me is one of our country's leading experts on election law, Rick Hassan, a professor at U c Irvin and the author of the Justice of Contradictions and nin Scalia and the Politics of Disruption. Rick, the Court has never struck down a voting map for being so partisan it violates the Constitution. Do the Justices at least agree that extreme partisan jerrymandering is a violation

of the Constitution. I think they actually do agree on that point, and you think that that would settle it.

But back in two thousand four, Justice Scalia wrote a plurality opinion in a case called v versus Jubellar involving Pennsylvania's redistricting, where he said, even if it's unconstitutional, and will assume that it is, the question is whether or not the courts have any power to rein it in are there any judicially manageable standards to know when taking partisanship into account and drawing district lines is too much?

And it was very clear from the argument yesterday in the Maryland jerrymandering case that the Court is still struggling with that question. Is there a standard that the Court can enunciate that could actually help to decide when too much partisanship comes into play in these drawing of district lines. Why is partisan jerrymandering different from reach racial jerrymandering in this respect? Why why can they one but not the other?

It's a great question. And so when it comes to racial jerrymandering, um, the standard there is one of simply making race the predominant factor in drawing district lines. And the Court says that that violent secret protection clause that sends a message that you're separating voters on the basis of race, and this is a pernicious message. That's the theory of a case called Shaw versus Reno, and it's

been from the has been carried through today. UM. Although some of the justices had have advanced in an argument that if you make race the sole motivator, if you make party partisanship the soul motivator or the main motivator in drawing district lines, that's unconstitutional. The Court in vis rejected that standard. Justice Kennedy was the fifth vote rejected that standard and rejected a similar standard in a two thousand six case coming out of Texas. So it's got

to be something different than that. Um. It could be some thing like vote dilution, which we see in the voting rights context, except diluting the votes of Democrats or Republicans. But they're not exactly clear on how you would draw the line. And one of the things Justice Brier floated an argument yesterday is they've got two or three cases involving these issues, maybe they should just hear them again.

Next term, bringing all the lawyers from all the cases, put it on a blackboard and try and sort it out and figure out, is there, holy Grail, is there a standard they could apply for all of these cases that's actually gonna work. And a lot of the justices expressed both uncomfortable nous with what Maryland had done in drawing this congressional district of favor Democrats and a lack of comfort with any standard that they can come up

with to say what the general rules should be. Well, do you think kicking the can or the case down the road is going to help them any Well, it might help Justice Brier keep Justice Kennedy on the court. Some people were suggesting that maybe this was a way to say, you know, Kennedy's is seen as a likely

swing voter here. This is one of his signature issues where he's been debating the issue with himself for the last decade or so, and you know, if you set the case for arguments in the fall, maybe Kennedy sticks around, you know, amid all of these retirement rumors. So there were there was a case argued about Maryland this week and then Wisconsin before. Is Justice Kennedy the swing vote in both those cases, and the way one case goes is that the way the other case will go. Well,

the case is different four different ways. One is that one involves Democrats doing the chairmanaging. The other involves Republicans that shouldn't sway sway. The difference. One involves congressional districts and the other involves state legislative districts. Uh. One involves a challenge to the entire map, the other involves a challenge to just a single district and um uh the uh.

The last difference is that one involves the three under the Equal Protection Clause, the other under the First Amendment. These all kind of offer different ways for Justice Kennedy, if he's a swing voter, to go and decide these cases. We just don't know. We didn't know why the Court said argument for in the second cases of the Maryland case as opposed to just holding it for the Wisconsin case.

The answer seems to be after argument that the Justice they're just struggling with very basic principles as to whether and how they're going to address any of these issues. It's it was if you look at the headlines yesterday describing your argument befuddlement frustration. The Court really seems like it's struggling and does not know what to do, and it's not normally what you see coming out of a Supreme Court argument. So, Rick, what's your what's your final take? Do?

Will they come out with it with a decision one way or the other? Will they you know, kick it to the next term or what what's your take? Well, I don't have a good sense after the argument. Nothing would surprise me that is there. There are very easy ways for them to kick this, to kick the Maryland case in particular, because it's up on a preliminary injunction and they could just postpone it for a few years.

But if Kennedy is thinking about leaving the Court in the next few years and he's the swing vote, that should put some pressure on the Court to actually decide the issue this term. But we'll find out in June. So, um, just briefly, we have about thirty seconds, so the mid term elections will definitely be held using the maps that may later be determined to be unconstitutional. Perhaps that is

seems very likely. There was a whole discussion at the beginning of the argument yesterday about whether, given that this is up on the Ploomery in junction. Is it too late for a remedy in two thousand eighteen. The lawyer said no, but Justice Kennedy said, oh, come on, uh. Candidates already running, so does not seem likely that anything's going to change. Thank you, Rick. That's Rick hass and Professor at U c Irvine. His book is The Justice

of Contradictions, Antonin Scalia and the Politics of Disruption. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Rosso. This is Bloomberg