Mick Mulvaney needs to get a lawyer: CNN's Jim Acosta

On Monday's edition of CNN's "The Situation Room," chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta said that acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney needs to hire a lawyer separately from the White House counsel, following new reports that the attorney for former National Security Adviser John Bolton is rejecting a legal alliance with him.

"There are reports that Mulvaney was sort of on thin ice as a result of that disastrous press briefing that he gave a couple of weeks ago," said anchor Wolf Blitzer. "Why does he need a private attorney, why isn't he represented by the White House counsel?"

"Well, Mick Mulvaney is essentially, I think, involved in all of this, and Democrats very much want to hear what Mick Mulvaney has to say," said Acosta. "Remember what Fiona Hill testified and others have testified throughout this impeachment inquiry, that John Bolton, the National Security Adviser — and remember, much of this weighs on whether John Bolton will be ultimately compelled to testify in this impeachment inquiry — but it was John Bolton, according to Fiona Hill, who said that Mick Mulvaney and Gordon Sondland, the Ambassador to the E.U., were cooking up a 'drug deal' with respect to this dirt-for-dollar scheme that was going on inside of the Trump Administration with respect to the president's phone call with Ukraine."

"And so there are some far-reaching implications in all of this, and if Mick Mulvaney is implicated in any way in a potential impeachment inquiry, that is why Mick Mulvaney needs outside counsel in addition to the White House counsel weighing in," said Acosta. "We saw the same thing playing out during the Russia investigation, when White House officials needed outside counsel, Wolf."

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