--- title: John Dowd Resigned From Donald Trump's Legal Team description: President Donald Trump's top attorney handling special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation resigned after calling for it to end. canonical: https://time.com/5210993/john-dowd-donald-trump-resigned/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-03-22T15:47:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T19:44:35.929Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump's Top Lawyer on the Robert Mueller Investigation Resigned og:description: Continuing turmoil on the president's legal team og:url: https://time.com/5210993/john-dowd-donald-trump-resigned/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2bd98d67b4d43af/69892b7f86f68ed7dd6e8a95/gettyimages-1137273212.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: John Dowd, lead attorney for Raj Rajaratnam, co-founder of Galleon Group LLC, enters federal court in New York, U.S., on Thursday, May 5, 2011. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump's Top Lawyer on the Robert Mueller Investigation Resigned twitter:description: Continuing turmoil on the president's legal team twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2bd98d67b4d43af/69892b7f86f68ed7dd6e8a95/gettyimages-1137273212.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump's Top Lawyer on the Robert Mueller Investigation Just Resigned > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=ee6404be-8274-430d-8cc9-b972e8ab6223&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Mar 22, 2018 3:47 PM UTC  John Dowd, lead attorney for Raj Rajaratnam, co-founder of Galleon Group LLC, enters federal court in New York, U.S., on Thursday, May 5, 2011. John Dowd, lead attorney for Raj Rajaratnam, co-founder of Galleon Group LLC, enters federal court in New York, U.S., on Thursday, May 5, 2011. Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Mar 22, 2018 3:47 PM UTC President Donald Trump’s top attorney handling the response to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation [resigned](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/22/us/politics/john-dowd-resigns-trump-lawyer.html) just days after calling for it to end, according to a report in the New York _Times_. Veteran Washington attorney John Dowd had [led the president’s legal team since June](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/politics/trump-lawyer-russia-investigation.html), when he replaced Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz during a reshuffling. Dowd had recently argued that the Department of Justice should [“bring an end”](http://time.com/5204181/donald-trump-andrew-mccabe-fbi-firing/) to the Russia investigation, which he said had been “manufactured” by former FBI Director James Comey. **Read More:** [_Meet the 7 Lawyers Advising Trump on Robert Mueller and Stormy Daniels_](http://time.com/5208957/donald-trump-lawyers-legal-team/) The change comes amid uncertainty over the direction of Trump’s legal team. The president recently hired former federal prosecutor Joseph diGenova, who has argued on cable TV for a conspiracy theory that the FBI and the Department of Justice are framing Trump. The president also sought to hire powerhouse D.C. lawyer Ted Olson, who [declined](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-legal-team-seeks-to-add-gravitas-with-offer-to-star-gop-attorney-theodore-b-olson/2018/03/20/571f1e46-2c41-11e8-8ad6-fbc50284fce8%5Fstory.html) just hours after the offer was made public. The turmoil comes as the president’s legal team has to decide how to respond to Mueller’s request for a sit-down interview, which Trump attorney Ty Cobb has argued could be a [perjury trap](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ty-cobb-trump-lawyer-takeout-interview/). Mueller is interested in learning more about Donald Trump Jr.’s 2016 meeting with Russians in Trump Tower, the president’s role in crafting a public statement about that meeting and the firings of Comey and national security adviser Michael Flynn, according to [a recent report on CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/21/politics/mueller-four-main-areas-questions-trump/index.html). Meantime, Trump’s personal lawyers are also suing [porn star Stormy Daniels](http://time.com/5208483/stormy-daniels-lie-detector-test-donald-trump-affair/), arguing she violated a hush agreement, and fending off a defamation lawsuit from _Apprentice_ contestant [Summer Zervos](http://time.com/4636828/donald-trump-summer-zervos-sexual-assault-defamation-apprentice/) for calling her a liar over accusations of sexual assault. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5210993/john-dowd-donald-trump-resigned/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5210993/john-dowd-donald-trump-resigned/"},"headline":"President Trump's Top Lawyer on the Robert Mueller Investigation Just Resigned","datePublished":"2018-03-22T15:47:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T19:44:35.929Z","description":"Continuing turmoil on the president's legal team","url":"https://time.com/5210993/john-dowd-donald-trump-resigned/","keywords":["Donald Trump","White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2bd98d67b4d43af/69892b7f86f68ed7dd6e8a95/gettyimages-1137273212.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ryan Teague Beckwith","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltb2bd98d67b4d43af/69892b7f86f68ed7dd6e8a95/gettyimages-1137273212.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"John Dowd, lead attorney for Raj Rajaratnam, co-founder of Galleon Group LLC, enters federal court in New York, U.S., on Thursday, May 5, 2011.","caption":"John Dowd, lead attorney for Raj Rajaratnam, co-founder of Galleon Group LLC, enters federal court in New York, U.S., on Thursday, May 5, 2011.","creditText":"Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5210993/john-dowd-donald-trump-resigned/","name":"President Trump's Top Lawyer on the Robert Mueller Investigation Just Resigned"}}]}] ```