John Dowd, a top attorney for President Trump, resigned just days after calling for the removal of special counsel Robert Mueller.
“I love the president and wish him well,” Dowd told the Washington Examiner.
Dowd told the Daily Beast over the weekend that he hoped the Justice Department would end Mueller’s probe into alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. While Dowd claimed initially that he was speaking as a representative of the president, he later backtracked and said he had expressed a personal opinion.
Dowd’s resignation comes just days after the president hired Joe diGenova, a controversial former prosecutor and legal pundit, to join his legal team. DiGenova argued previously that Trump is the victim of a conspiracy orchestrated by opponents within the Justice Department.
Dowd has served as Trump’s leading lawyer outside the White House, while Ty Cobb has spearheaded Trump’s personal representation from inside the West Wing.
Jay Sekulow, another lawyer representing the president, praised Dowd’s performance in a statement on his resignation.
“John Dowd is a friend and has been a valuable member of our legal team,” Sekulow said. “We will continue our ongoing representation of the president and our cooperation with the Office of Special Counsel.”
Dowd’s tenure on the Trump legal team was not without its controversies.
He and Cobb stirred up a firestorm when a New York Times reporter overheard the two lawyers loudly discussing details of their strategy for dealing with the Russia investigation.
During their conversation, Dowd and Cobb complained that White House counsel Don McGahn had moved to block Mueller from obtaining some documents investigators wanted to review. Cobb and Dowd discussed their preference, in earshot of the reporter, for cooperating more fully with the special counsel.
