Star GOP attorney Olson declines offer to join Trump’s legal team

President Donald Trump’s legal team reached out in recent days to Theodore Olson, one of the country’s most high-profile and seasoned litigators, to join forces amid mounting challenges in the probe of Russian inter- ference in the 2016 election, according to three people familiar with the discussions.

The overture came as Trump, feeling more vulnerable to the investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, has told confidants he wants to recruit top-tier talent and shake up his group of lawyers, the people said.

But after reviewing the offer and weighing potential conflicts with his clients at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he is a partner, Olson is not planning to join Trump’s team, a top executive at the firm said Tuesday.

“I can confirm that [the firm] and Theodore B. Olson will not be representing Trump,” Theodore Boutrous, the global co-chair of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher litigation group, tweeted on Monday following The Washington Post’s initial report.

Olson, 77, who served as solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration and has long been considered a legal superstar, would have brought deeper ties to the Justice Department and more experience on landmark cases than any of Trump’s current lawyers.

Inside the West Wing, there have been ongoing talks about Olson.

Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway recommended Olson to the president this week, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

The president discussed the possibility of enlisting Olson with aides Monday and was supportive of the idea, a per- son said.

The people familiar with the discussions were not authorized to speak publicly. Olson, in an email, said Tuesday, “I’m not going to be commenting on this subject.”

Growing concerns over the Mueller team’s possible inter- view of Trump — which would likely include questions about possible obstruction of justice — have sped up efforts by the president’s team to bring in Olson or another lawyer of his caliber, the people said.

On Monday, The Washing- ton Post reported that Trump’s legal team recently shared with Mueller’s office documents that chronicle key moments under investigation — in the hopes of curtailing the scope of a potential sit-down inter- view with Trump.

The talks with Olson are part of a broader disruption in the president’s legal circle. Trump reshuffled his legal team Monday by hiring Joe di Genova, an often incendiary pundit and former U.S. attorney who has publicly argued Trump is the target of an elaborate FBI conspiracy.

Trump’s legal team tasked with the Russia probe now includes White House lawyer Ty Cobb and two personal attorneys, John Dowd and Jay Sekulow. Dowd and Cobb have urged the president for months to cooperate with Mueller’s inquiry, which they have assured the president would quickly conclude. As the probe has carried on into 2018, Trump has angrily complained to aides that Cobb and Dowd have been too cooperative with Mueller, but he has not fired them.