WASHINGTON — As Republicans gear up for new jobs in the second Trump administration, people who worked for Donald Trump the first time are offering advice on an item to buy for those coming to Washington.
It’s not a piece of clothing or a trendy apartment, and most hope they never use it.
The administration’s new staffers are being warned to weigh the threat of a costly legal defense and consider purchasing a form of legal insurance that would provide them with a lawyer if necessary, a protection that many now consider part of doing business after former Trump aides were hauled before Congress. committees and grand juries over the past eight years, said five former senior administration officials and longtime Washington advisers.
Out of an abundance of caution, the Trump transition has informed some incoming administration officials about the need to price and purchase professional liability insurance, according to two people familiar with the warnings. The transition did not respond to requests for comment.
It’s a need former aides said they had during Trump’s first impeachment. “Everyone started getting it,” said a former government official. This person went without insurance and came out unscathed, but said if they came back they wouldn’t be so arrogant.
“You need legal representation when you’re dealing with people who have the government’s weapons at their disposal,” said a former White House official who also did not have insurance during the last administration but has since acquired it. “It’s very intimidating when you don’t have people by your side telling you what you can do and what circumstances you might find yourself in.”
“It’s approaching absolute requirement territory,” said a second former Trump White House official. “It would be reckless if you have assets you need to protect — the house, the college funds, whatever.”
Better prepared
Washington insiders have long expressed caution in advising new administration officials about the legal risks they might face doing their jobs.
“One thing I tell any client who is considering accepting a political appointment in a new administration, whether Republican or Democrat, is that they should expect to be involved in an investigation and think carefully about whether they are willing to are willing to take that risk and whether they want to take that risk.” We are ready,” said Robert Kelner, head of the congressional investigations practice at law firm Covington & Burling. “It has become so routine that you could almost take it for granted, and it can be very distracting and burdensome and sometimes expensive for political appointees.”
It’s a lesson many have learned the hard way. During Trump’s first term, White House aides said they would not cooperate with Democrats’ investigations, and current and former officials rejected demands to testify before Congress during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. the Trump and Ukraine impeachment inquiry and the January hearing investigation. 6 attack.
Two former Trump advisers – Steve Bannon and Roger Stone – ended up going to jail for refusing to cooperate with Congressional investigations.
“I often say that congressional investigations are like the Wild West because there are no rules,” Kelner said. “It’s about who has the fastest draw, who is stronger and who is smarter. So there’s a lot of strategy, a lot of maneuvering, a lot of attitude, but not a lot of laws, not a lot of rules governing the process.
Some in Washington see a business opportunity to help cover the costs of legal fees for government employees. Anthony Vergnetti left his job as a lawyer more than a decade ago to start an insurance company that protects government employees from legal exposure. Vergnetti said in a “FEDTalk” podcast interview that aired in 2023 that the cost of a policy can range from $250 to $400 and often lasts for several months after someone leaves a government job. Certain agencies will pay some of the costs, he said. Vergnetti declined to be interviewed by NBC News.
Brace yourself for the worst
In May 2017, Trump had been in office for just five months and already the hint of possible congressional investigations had aides scrambling for cover. In a memoir of his 500-day stay in the Trump White House, Cliff Sims, former director of White House messaging strategy, wrote that a leaked story falsely reported that he and another colleague would run a ‘Russia War Room’ – and immediately harnessed them. to a political power line.
“We were livid,” Sims wrote in “Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House.” “First of all, it wasn’t true. But more worryingly, the connection to all things Russia opened up the possibility of legal bills that could easily exceed a year’s White House salary.”
The hope is that aides will come in with some cover this time as Trump begins rolling out promised immigration policies and a series of executive actions.
A former senior Trump White House official said Trump’s staffers — unlike the president himself, whose key presidential powers are protected — are bearing the brunt of any actions that could come under legal fire in the future.
“If Trump issues an illegal order and you do it out of loyalty to him, you are liable,” the former senior official said. ‘He’s protected, you’re not. While he is protected, you could be left with a serious legal problem.”
Trump used a political account to help pay for lawyers for some of his allies who were summoned before the Jan. 6 committee and grand juries, but that help did not extend to everyone. And even if it did, at least one recipient didn’t believe it helped.
Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson appeared before the Jan. 6 committee with an attorney paid by Trump’s allies. She later hired a lawyer herself and returned to the committee to provide more information, saying she felt the first lawyer gave her bad advice. In her book, Hutchinson wrote about the anguish she faced because she was unable to pay for her own lawyer, including traveling to her estranged biological father’s home to beg him to help her retain an attorney and an offer from an uncle and aunt to mortgage their house. to pay the bill.
The Trump investigation left other staff members staring into a pile of expensive attorneys’ fees as they searched for representation that wouldn’t leave them saddled with a mountain of legal debt. The investigation into Trump continued after he left office, leading to White House alumni helping to set up a charity to help pay for the legal defense of certain co-defendants.
“These are things that people who have been to Washington know, how to get liability insurance,” the first former White House official explained. “Not everyone was necessarily told that last time, but the hard way we finally found out.”
The advice this person gives today? “Prepare for the worst. You never know.”
A former Republican official who worked for the party made the argument that if you have some level of exposure to potential subpoenas, insurance is non-discretionary. “You have to take out insurance. It’s not one of these “I’m going to roll the dice” scenarios. You insure yourself,” said the former official. With certain insurers you can even include the insurance in your current home or car cover.
The former chief White House official said: “For most, that could do some damage to your bank account.”
Mike Howell, an attorney who represented a high-profile client pro bono before the Jan. 6 committee, said the dynamic generates perverse incentives among Republican lawyers at a time when new political appointments are more at risk than ever.
“The lawyers of the right are there to make a lot of money from these conflicts; they see it as a customer base and a market,” Howell argued. “And so, when young people are subjected to these legal practices, there is no one to protect them.”
Not a new phenomenon
The threat of political investigations is not exactly new. There was the Benghazi report, in which Congress shifted its powers, the investigation into whether George W. Bush’s Justice Department ordered the firing of U.S. attorneys, and an impeachment inquiry into Bill Clinton. During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, there was talk of the Iran-Contra affair.
“We’re in a kind of low-intensity conflict, that’s what the Defense Department guys like to call it,” the second former White House official said. “This low-level war continues continuously. The only question is: Can they figure out a way to harm you personally, and not just as a government employee?”
Yet new political staffers on both sides of the aisle, and especially those new to government, have not always remembered to buy insurance. The idea is that if a government official were to be called in for questioning on an employment matter, he or she could safely rely on government counsel.
But that promise has not allayed concerns. A former Obama White House official recalled how friends at the State Department began running for cover when Republicans in Congress promised a raft of investigations into the attack that killed Americans at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.
And Kelner said he can’t recall a situation where he represented someone in government and his firm’s fees were paid by an insurance policy — suggesting they were probably not aligned with Big Law’s rates.
The person may instead end up with an attorney selected by his or her provider and not one of the few white shoe partners with experience before the most challenging government investigations, meaning some insurance policies may not provide the kind of coverage that some expect. As a result, the more rigorous the investigation, the higher the potential reputational costs.
Kelner said Clinton’s presidency marked a turning point as partisan, politicized investigations ramped up with no signs of slowing. “It never really stopped after that,” he added.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com