Trump’s legal team is no match for Mueller’s

As Mueller adds experienced prosecutors and broadens his investigation, Trump’s legal team still appears disorganized and understaffed. An army of well-paid lawyers would help the president get in front of the investigation: preparing responses to allegations before hearing about them from prosecutors or reporters, anticipating where Mueller is going, and developing a counternarrative to stymie him. Junior staffers could spend all night researching case law or obstruction of justice and conspiracy statutes; they could be available at a moment’s notice to draft pleadings challenging Mueller’s requests to interview witnesses or gather documents.

Instead, Trump’s defense has been almost entirely reactive—responding to the latest bombshell report with uninformed statements by surrogates. The strategy adopted by those close to Trump, if not his legal team, has been to try to discredit Mueller’s investigation by pointing out potential conflicts of interest or political biases that may exist among his investigators. “I don’t get any sense that they’re trying to get ahead of anything,” says Don Goldberg, who worked in the White House Counsel’s Office during the Clinton administration. “You wonder about whether the top people at the White House really understand what they’re stepping into.”