WASHINGTON — John Dowd resigned on Thursday as President Trump’s lead lawyer for the special counsel investigation as Mr. Trump signaled that he was prepared to ignore his advice and wanted a sit-down with investigators.
After days of uncertainty among the president’s lawyers about their status, Mr. Dowd ultimately broke with Mr. Trump over whether he should agree to be questioned in the inquiry, a person briefed on the matter said.
Mr. Dowd viewed an interview as too risky; the president reiterated shortly after Mr. Dowd resigned that he wanted to clear his name. “I would like to,” the president told reporters at the White House when asked about meeting with investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. “I would like to.”
Mr. Dowd’s departure cleared the way for the president to embrace a more aggressive posture toward the investigation and marked another reshuffling of personnel for Mr. Trump. In the most politically consequential investigation in decades, the president has refashioned his legal team several times, a revolving door that mirrors the high turnover among senior White House and campaign aides.
“I love the president,” Mr. Dowd said in a telephone interview. “I wish him the best of luck. I think he has a really good case.”
Now, as he weighs whether to be interviewed by Mr. Mueller, the president will be advised by a cadre of lawyers better known for their television and advocacy work than their courtroom triumphs.
This week, the president hired Joseph E. diGenova, a longtime Washington lawyer who has pushed the theory on Fox News that the F.B.I. and Justice Department framed Mr. Trump.
The former United States attorney in Washington, Mr. diGenova has been on television in recent years more than he has been in court. He has appeared in only three federal criminal cases in the past two decades, according to the national database of federal court records, and has not filed an appearance in a federal criminal case in eight years.
Mr. diGenova was brought aboard by Jay Sekulow, his longtime friend and the president’s other personal lawyer for the Mueller investigation.
Mr. Sekulow, a constitutional lawyer and radio host, has specialized in religious freedom and campaign finance cases and appeared in numerous civil cases, including filing lawsuits and amicus briefs in recent years against the Obama administration. Most notably, Mr. Sekulow sued the Internal Revenue Service over improper delays in processing tax-exempt status for conservative groups.
The president is also considering restoring Marc E. Kasowitz, his longtime personal lawyer, to a larger role. Mr. Kasowitz had run the legal team until he was pushed aside last summer, but he was still in contact with the president occasionally over the past several months and supports the aggressive approach the president is veering toward.
As his relationship with Mr. Dowd grew strained, the president sought top legal help in recent weeks, but his discussions with well-regarded lawyers — including Emmet T. Flood, who represented President Bill Clinton during impeachment — have yielded little fruit.
Mr. Flood is said to be interested in joining the White House but will not do so if Mr. Kasowitz returns to a significant role, two people close to the president’s legal team said.
He hired Mr. Dowd, Mr. Sekulow and Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer for the investigation, who all advised the president to be more cooperative with the special counsel, convincing him that it would hasten the end of the investigation. They also promised him at several points that the inquiry would be over by last December.
The president was said to be pleased with the resignation of Mr. Dowd, whose prickly personality had begun to grate on him and other members of the legal team, according to a person who spoke with the president. Mr. Trump had lost confidence in his lead lawyer in recent weeks and had spoken to the outside lawyers without directly consulting Mr. Dowd about hiring them, the person said.
Tensions between Mr. Trump and Mr. Dowd began to emerge publicly in January when the president told reporters that he was eager to be interviewed by the special counsel. Mr. Dowd, who had taken the lead in dealing with investigators about an interview, had been trying to persuade Mr. Mueller to allow the president to answer questions in writing or through recorded video. Mr. Trump’s declaration angered Mr. Dowd, who viewed it as undercutting whatever leverage he had over Mr. Mueller.
“I will make the decision on whether the president talks to the special counsel,” Mr. Dowd told reporters at the time. “I have not made any decision yet.”
Mr. Dowd, along with other lawyers on the team, recognized the risks of putting a client prone to hyperbole and inaccuracies in the same room with prosecutors. Mr. Mueller has already prosecuted several people for making false statements in the case.
Mr. Dowd, a former Marine Corps captain and seasoned Washington defense lawyer, was best known as leading the Major League Baseball inquiry into gambling accusations involving Pete Rose, baseball’s hits leader and the former Cincinnati Reds manager.
Mr. Dowd also represented Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, when he was accused of improperly meeting with federal bank regulators as a favor for a political donor. Mr. McCain was ultimately exonerated.
But shortly after taking over, Mr. Dowd committed a series of unforced errors that raised questions about his judgment. In August, he forwarded an email to journalists, government officials and friends that echoed secessionist Civil War propaganda and equated the South’s rebellion to that of the American Revolution against England.
A month later, Mr. Dowd and Mr. Cobb were overheard by a New York Times reporter openly discussing intimate details about the president’s legal strategy over lunch at a bistro near the White House.
In December, Mr. Dowd was forced to apologize for composing a tweet posted by the president suggesting Mr. Trump knew his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, had lied to the F.B.I. Mr. Flynn had pleaded guilty a day earlier to the charge and agreed to cooperate with the special counsel.
Finally, last weekend, amid the fallout from the firing of a top F.B.I. official, Mr. Dowd called on the Justice Department to end the special counsel investigation. Mr. Dowd, who had forged relationships with the special counsel’s office, said at first that he was speaking for the president, but later backtracked.
The president was angered with Mr. Dowd’s handling of the episode, telling people that it was ham-handed and that Mr. Dowd should not have backed off his initial statement. Mr. Dowd has told people that the president had recently implored him to stay, but he was said to be considering quitting earlier this week.
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