Even some of President Donald Trump's allies believe his legal defense is shaky against the special counsel investigation.
The president's legal team -- now led by Rudy Giuliani -- has shifted its goal from criminal defense to a political fight to hold off impeachment if Democrats retake Congress in the midterm elections, reported Politico.
Trump and his lawyers plan to challenge special counsel Robert Mueller through the media to chip away at his credibility and keep the support of Republican voters and lawmakers.
“The public strategy has now subsumed the legal strategy,” said one source who has worked with the president’s lawyers. “The public stance is fight, fight, fight. So the legal strategy is now fight, fight, fight.”
Giuliani joined the president's outside legal team last month, and he blew up Trump's defense in the Stormy Daniels lawsuit by revealing he had repaid attorney Michael Cohen for a $130,000 hush money payout just days before the 2016 election.
A list of topics Mueller would likely ask Trump during an interview was compiled by Trump's legal team and then leaked to the New York Times earlier this week.
White House attorney Ty Cobb, who has been negotiating an interview of the president by Mueller, announced this week he would retire from Trump's legal team at the end of the month, after attorney John Dowd -- who advised against the sit-down -- already left.
Veteran defense attorney Emmet Flood will join Trump's legal team, but even some of the president's allies questioned why the highly respected GOP lawyer would join a chaotic and ruthless White House inner circle.
“The mystery isn’t why Ty Cobb is leaving, it’s why Emmet Flood is joining a suicide mission,” one lawyer close to the White House told Politico.