Lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis, Gibson Dunn & Crucher and Sullivan & Cromwell have rebuffed Donald Trump's attempts to instruct them as his legal difficulties mount.

The White House has, according to US reports, made unsuccessful overtures to leading US constitutional lawyers including Paul Clement and Mark Filip of Kirkland & Ellis, Ted Olson of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Robert Giuffra of Sullivan & Cromwell. Trump was seeking to secure their services to mount defences against four congressional investigations into his election campaign's possible collusion with Russia, as well as the Department of Justice's widening probe led by special counsel Robert Mueller.

The lawyers tapped by Trump have acted for the likes of mining companies, defence contractors and George W Bush. But they drew the line at Trump. One, Brendan Sullivan of Williams & Conolley, fobbed him off with a classic washing-my-hair line and said that he was too busy with upcoming trials. 
 

For very good/fake news reasons, they're out.

Kirkland & Ellis, Sullivan & Cromwell and Gibson Dunn & Crucher declined to comment, but lawyers close to the White House have leaked several of the reasons Trump was allegedly rejected. They included fears that he would ignore advice and undercut it with crazed tweets, and that he would stiff firms on their bills. One source said that, “the concerns were, ‘The guy won’t pay and he won’t listen’”. Other White House sources said that candidates were concerned that associating their firm with an increasingly unpopular solipsistic clown would “kill recruitment”, as well as jeopardise relationships with other clients.

Having failed to instruct the nation's finest, Trump's administration now refers all inquiries concerning his legal woes to his long-time personal attorney, Marc E Kasowitz. Although he is comfortable issuing florid threats in defence of Trump, Kasowitz has less experience fighting complex Department of Justice cases. In an inauspicious debut, his response to testimony from fired FBI director James Comey was a typo-strewn statement in which he spelled the client's name wrong in the first line, proclaiming, "I am Marc Kasowitz, Predisent Trump’s personal lawyer". There's always Jones Day.