CNN just reported that a team of outside advisers to the President have been meeting today to bring in more lawyers to help the President in light of the appointment of a special counsel. That is not abnormal. Presidents who have been in some sense the focus of investigations like this have often, probably usually, hired outside lawyers beyond the White House Counsel. But apparently shepherding this process is Michael Cohen, the President’s longtime “personal lawyer” and Trump Organization fixture who has his own tangled relationship with various Russian and Ukrainian interests, Felix Sater and more.

Remember, he was actually the one who met with Sater and that Ukrainian member of parliament who had a ‘peace plan’ to deliver to Mike Flynn.