A lawyer who worked for Donald Trump's White House says the former president is facing an entirely different legal "battlefield" than when he was representing him in the Russia investigation, but he still tried to explain what is going through his head.
Ty Cobb appeared on MSNBC's Alex Witt Reports on Saturday, where he was asked about what it was like when he was "directly in touch with Trump on a daily basis."
"Can you give me a sense of what you think his mindset is, as he is trying to navigate his current legal challenges?" she asked of Cobb.
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"I can try," he said. "He has so many that he probably is not able to give any particular one the degree of concentration that he would like. He has to rely on so many different lawyers and so many different teams of lawyers, some of whom are quite capable, others of whom have not distinguished themselves. I think it is very difficult for him, and he is not really a strategist in that regard. So I think he is very much dependent on the lawyers. And I think that has turned out to be a problem. For two reasons: for one, the facts are terrible. His conduct is reprehensible, subject 91 felony accounts, four separate indictments, and multiple civil cases. He has lost almost half a $1 billion. So it is not like this is a smooth ship."
The host then asked Cobb what it was "like to serve in the Oval Office under Trump."
"What can you tell us about his demeanor interactions with him? How did he treat you, how did he treat others?" the host queried.
"So, I don't go a lot into the back-and-forth between me and the former president, just because I'm not a fan of lawyers who tell all. But for the most part, in my experience, the interaction was largely professional, largely what you would expect. There were some difficult moments, there were some other moments that were highly substantive. There was some give-and-take. And it wasn't always easy for either of us. But I think we got through it professionally, and I think the work on the so-called Russia investigation went relatively smoothly."
All that said, according to Cobb, "this is a much different battlefield that he is facing now."
"These are the things that he did, that that he has been charged with. A grand jury has charged him in each of the four instances. There are multiple prosecutors all over the country engaged in these events. It is quite a difficult legal minefield to run the table on. He does have the benefit of time, at least with the federal cases, because he will be able to dismiss those if they are still on appeal or still active once the election is over if he wins. But only if he wins. If he loses, he's going to jail."
