Surrounded by lawyers, Trump back in familiar stance

Surrounded by lawyers, Trump back in familiar stance
By Kevin Liptak, CNN White House Producer
Story highlights
Trump's lead lawyer is Marc Kasowitz
Kasowitz is Trump's longtime personal lawyer

Washington (CNN) When Donald Trump was seeking out a lawyer to represent him in his tabloid-bait divorce from first wife, Ivana, a swarm of attorneys descended on his office in Manhattan, hoping to proffer their services upon the real estate mogul.

"My office resembled an emergency room, but instead of patients, there were lawyers crowding around," Trump wrote in one of his books, "The Art of the Comeback."
The lawyers, who Trump claimed were meting out their services free of charge, each offered their own take on a legal strategy.
"No one satisfied me," Trump wrote.
Now, as President, Trump is looking for ways to best to confront the multiple investigations into Russia's election year meddling -- and is looking, again, to his lawyers.
The high-powered attorney behind Trump

Loyalty first
In some ways, Trump's approach to legal representation hasn't changed much in the two-and-a-half decades since he was divorcing Ivana. People who have worked with him -- then and now -- say it's an 'I'm-right-you're-wrong' method, honed over years of different litigation fights, that places loyalty and bull-doggedness over nearly anything else.
For lawyers he likes, Trump offers the world: trips to Mar-a-Lago, invites to rooftop parties, and -- if they're successful -- handsome compensation. But for lawyers he views as insufficiently aggressive or overly cautious, he's quick to part ways, according to people who have worked with him.
Jay Goldberg is a lawyer who represented Trump in his first divorce and has remained a close friend for decades.
"All he wanted from a lawyer," Goldberg says now, "is 'tell me how it can be done, not how it can't be done.' "
As he gathers his legal team in the Oval Office, Trump has sought multiple viewpoints on how best to proceed in what all agree will be a prolonged battle against potential accusations of wrongdoing related to Russia. He's adopted some of his team's recommendations, sources close to the situation say, but discarded others.
His driving focus, say people close to the President: batting back media reports about the ongoing investigations, some of which have driven Trump into rages that few of his own staff members can break.

Leading the effort is Marc Kasowitz, Trump's longtime personal lawyer, who regularly charges clients $1,500 per hour for his services. His firm's previous tasks for the President have included filing defamation suits against a biographer who allegedly understated Trump's wealth; legal proceedings to keep Trump's divorce records sealed; and intricate bond-restructuring proceedings for Trump's casino properties in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The defamation suit was dismissed.
Trump and Kasowitz have been meeting several times a week, people familiar with the situation said, mainly in the Oval Office. A person involved in the discussions said the outside legal team has yet to develop a daily or weekly routine, but suggested that with months or even years of Russia-related investigations ahead, the group will soon fall into a regular pattern of reviewing documents and preparing the President for testimony, if necessary.
At one point, Kasowitz considered moving into office space inside the White House complex, potentially in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, for more convenient access to Trump, according to two people familiar with the team's operations.
But that idea has largely been put aside, according to these sources. For now, Kasowitz and his team are working from the Washington offices of his law firm, Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP, located two blocks east of the White House in downtown Washington.
Other members of the legal team include John Dowd, a Washington legal veteran who helmed Major League Baseball's gambling investigation into manager Pete Rose; Jay Sekulow, a conservative pundit and lawyer at a Christian legal advocacy group; Michael Bowe, a New York-based partner in Kasowitz's law firm; and Mark Corallo, a public relations professional who has worked previously as a spokesman for then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Sources said Kasowitz is still looking to add at least one additional lawyer to the President's team as it prepares for extended work related to the Russia investigations. Several prominent Washington lawyers have declined to join the effort for a variety of reasons -- including conflicts of interest, concerns about payment, and a general sense that associating with Trump could damage their legal reputations, or the reputations of their law firms, according to people familiar with the situation.