A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America

by Philip Rucker

As they settled into a work pattern with the president, the lawyers increasingly saw Kushner and Ivanka Trump as problems. The kids wandered in and out of strategy sessions about the investigation, without so much as a knock on the door, asking what was going on. Ivanka would walk in, say, “Hi, Dad,” and the lawyers would stop talking about substance and simply smile at her awkwardly, waiting for her to leave. She and Kushner talked openly about details of the investigation with other staffers, as well as with the president, and privately offered him their own advice. “The kids are always there,” Corallo later explained. “The discomfort is with the kids always being there and talking about the case with other people in the White House, which makes everybody a witness.” The dynamic, he added, “makes it impossible for the White House to function in a normal way.” Bannon and Priebus had warned Kasowitz and Bowe back in May about the problems created by having the president’s daughter and son-in-law working in the White House in the midst of a special counsel investigation. McGahn shared their concerns. But the kids wanted to be part of the action, and they wanted the lawyers on their side. They worked to charm Dowd, who was immediately taken by Ivanka as she profusely thanked him for joining the legal team and remarked about how valuable he would be to her father. Others who interacted with Ivanka found her to be a spoiled princess who had absorbed her father’s worst narcissi...