Trump Needs a Strong Lawyer

In less than a month, the Trump White House already has spawned a litany of ethics and legal controversies: potential conflicts of interest created by the president retaining ownership of his businesses, court challenges to his executive order on immigration, and the ouster of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, to name just a few.

All of these issues fall within the purview of one senior Trump aide, White House Counsel Donald McGahn, who’s enjoyed a degree of anonymity that’s beginning to erode as the political circus in Washington shows no sign of settling down. “He’s either one of the architects of this mess, giving bad advice,” says Nicholas Allard, a longtime Washington attorney who’s now the dean of Brooklyn Law School, “or more likely, based on what I know about his intelligence and experience, he’s siloed off and is not one of the people the president listens to.”