Clinton's impeachment lawyer is joining Trump's legal team

Out: the one lawyer urging President Donald Trump to fully cooperate with the special counsel investigation. In: former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment lawyer.

In the latest shakeup to Trump's legal team, White House lawyer Ty Cobb will leave his post as intermediary between special counsel Robert Mueller and Trump at the end of the month, the White House confirmed Wednesday. The New York Times reports that Emmet Flood, a D.C.-based attorney who represented Clinton during his impeachment trial in 1996, will replace him.

“For several weeks Ty Cobb has been discussing his retirement, and last week he let Chief of Staff Kelly know he would retire at the end of this month,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said.

During his 10-month tenure at the White House, Cobb, 68, consistently reiterated that the White House was complying fully with the investigation into whether the Trump campaign had anything to do with Russian meddling in the 2016 election. His statements often contrasted with Trump’s harsh criticism of the investigation and Mueller himself.

Read: Trump’s plot to smear Mueller is in full swing

Cobb predicted the investigation would be over by Thanksgiving 2017, then extended his prediction to the end of 2017. Now, four months into 2018, Mueller has been striking closer and closer to the president and recently referred an investigation into Trump’s longtime personal deputy Michael Cohen to federal prosecutors in New York. The referral resulted in the seizure of thousands of his documents in April, some related to Trump. And Mueller is eager to get Trump to sit down with him and answer a list of nearly 50 detailed questions about his conduct stretching back years, even threatening Trump with a subpoena in March, according to the Washington Post.

Flood, Cobb’s likely replacement, was one of several lawyers on Clinton’s legal team during his impeachment proceedings. His law firm, Williams and Connolly, represented Hillary Clinton during the private server and email scandal.

It's just part of a larger legal reshuffle: Trump’s personal attorney John Dowd left the team in March, and three new lawyers, including former New York City mayor and Trump campaign surrogate Rudy Giuliani, joined in April. Giuliani has indicated he wants to “negotiate an end” to the probe.

Cover image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images