WASHINGTON President Trumps legal team is wrestling with how much to cooperate with the special counsel looking into Russian election interference, an internal debate that led to an angry confrontation last week between two White House lawyers and that could shape the course of the investigation.
At the heart of the clash is an issue that has challenged multiple presidents during high-stakes Washington investigations: how to handle the demands of investigators without surrendering the institutional prerogatives of the office of the presidency. Similar conflicts during the Watergate and Monica S. Lewinsky scandals resulted in court rulings that limited a presidents right to confidentiality.
The debate in Mr. Trumps West Wing has pitted Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, against Ty Cobb, a lawyer brought in to manage the response to the investigation. Mr. Cobb has argued for turning over as many of the emails and documents requested by the special counsel as possible in hopes of quickly ending the investigation or at least its focus on Mr. Trump.
Mr. McGahn supports cooperation, but is worried about setting a precedent that would weaken the White House long after Mr. Trumps tenure is over. He is described as particularly concerned about whether the president will invoke executive or attorney-client privilege to limit how forthcoming Mr. McGahn could be if he himself is interviewed by the special counsel as requested.
The friction escalated in recent days after Mr. Cobb was overheard by a reporter for The New York Times discussing the dispute during a lunchtime conversation at a popular Washington steakhouse. Mr. Cobb was heard talking about a White House lawyer he deemed a McGahn spy and saying Mr. McGahn had a couple documents locked in a safe that he seemed to suggest he wanted access to. He also mentioned a colleague whom he blamed for some of these earlier leaks, and who he said tried to push Jared out, meaning Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and senior adviser, who has been a previous source of dispute for the legal team.
