Ty Cobb, in his first interview since joining the team representing President Donald Trump related to the Russia investigation, explained why he agreed to work with the president and what he expects to do.
My dad was a Navy fighter pilot and I grew up in rural Kansas, Cobb said as he boarded a flight for his Charleston, South Carolina, home on Friday. If the president asks you, you don t say no. I have rocks in my head and steel balls.
The White House initially reached out to Cobb, a Hogan Lovells partner, about the counsel position in early June. He was most attracted to the job because it was an impossible task with a deadline, he said. He then mentioned several other experiences he s had in his career, which allowed him to work in public service as a prosecutor and as special trial counsel in an independent investigation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the 90s. Some even put him in a position where others threatened his life, he said.
Cobb clarified the role he ll play in his newest appointment in the West Wing. News reports since last Friday have described him becoming everything from the president s personal lawyer to his spokesman.
Cobb said that starting July 31, he ll be a simple government employee not part of the personal legal team. That white-collar team currently consists of John Dowd, Jay Sekulow and Marc Kasowitz. Another fiction is the theory that I ve taken all media stuff. I m going to manage the message, but I m not going on camera all the time, Cobb said.
He ll work closely with White House counsel Donald McGahn but will report directly to the president. Cobb won t have the same type of attorney-client privilege that Trump shares with his personal white-collar lawyers outside the White House. Cobb wouldn t respond to subpoenas sent directly to Trump, for instance, but he would respond as a lawyer who represents the office of the presidency.
Trump s personal lawyers, such as Dowd and Sekulow, are currently fielding Washington-centric pieces of the investigation, Cobb said, including inquiries from special counsel Robert Mueller III and from Congress. Yet he added there s no reason to believe the president is under investigation. Cobb said he wasn t aware of any subpoenas sent to Trump.
They re in full cooperation mode and they ve been directed to fully cooperate and get this over with as quickly as possible, Cobb said.
After a particularly grueling two weeks for the West Wing and its lawyers, Cobb defended the work of his soon-to-be colleagues, who ve been criticized by other attorneys for not having control over the president s public statements.