16 July, 2017
A Washington attorney chosen to serve as President Donald Trump's special counsel to handle the White House's response to the Russian Federation probes hails from Kansas.
A former federal prosecutor, Cobb is expected to handle the legal and media response to probes into an alleged Russian interference into the 2016 USA presidential election and a possible collusion by the Trump campaign, a White House source was quoted by US media as saying.
Ty Cobb, whose legal expertise lies in white-collar crime and congressional investigations, will be "in charge of overseeing the White House legal and media response" to the investigations, according to Bloomberg News.
Bannon went so far as to reach out to Lanny Davis, the Washington lawyer who acted both as Clinton's legal adviser and aggressive spokesman.
A bio on the website of Cobb's former firm, Hogan Lovells, says that "Clients managing crises, allegations of corruption, and other critical matters turn to Ty to guide them". He's expected to join the White House at the end of the month.
To be what he called "totally transparent", Trump Jr. made public a chain of emails with an intermediary about the meeting that took place on June 9, 2016 at Trump Tower in NY, but was accused of violating the Federal Election Campaign Act by conspiring to solicit a contribution from a foreign national during the campaign. The move frees White House counsel Don McGahn's staff to focus on other Trump priorities, including de-regulation, one of the people said. He'll coordinate with Trump's personal lawyer on Russian Federation matters, Marc Kasowitz. Trump Jr.'s explanations of the reason for the meeting evolved after The New York Times published several stories about the meeting in recent days. Constitutional lawyer and evangelical radio talk show host Jay Sekulow, Washington lawyer John Dowd, and Michael Bowe, a partner at Kasowitz's firm, are all on that team.
The decision ends a weeks-long search in which Trump considered several other lawyers and Republican personalities, including Matt Whitaker, a former USA attorney in Iowa; Laura Ingraham, a conservative political commentator; and Washington attorneys William Burck and Emmet Flood.
Cobb, who sports a handlebar mustache, is a distant relative of the famous early 20th century baseball player of the same name.
