Donald Trump has long characterized Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation—along with various parallel probes and offshoots—as politically motivated. But in a wide-ranging interview with ABC News published Tuesday, the president’s former lawyer made it clear that he doesn’t share that view. Speaking on the Investigation podcast, Ty Cobb—who served as Trump’s White House lawyer from 2017 to 2018—reiterated that he feels the probe is legitimate and praised the man the president has repeatedly tried to paint as “conflicted.”

“I don’t feel the same way about Mueller,” Cobb said. “I don’t feel the investigation is a witch hunt.”

He added that he disagrees with how Trump and Rudy Giuliani have attempted to smear the Mueller probe, noting that “Rudy and the president have been effective in a way that, you know, would not have been preferable for me. But they have ratcheted up the public’s concerns about the investigation and its legitimacy. I object to that approach. But it’s his choice. He’s the president.”

His comments come as Trump braces for the special counsel’s final report, which Cobb predicted would be released within the next two weeks. Giuliani is said to be expecting the worst. Democrats and other Trump critics, meanwhile, are eagerly awaiting Mueller’s conclusions, which could serve as the basis for a possible impeachment push.

Cobb, though, tamped down expectations for Mueller, saying he doesn’t ”buy” the notion that the final report will be the death blow—and took a dig at Democrats “hell-bent” on using the investigation to undermine the president. “I don’t think [Adam] Schiff buys it either,” Cobb said. “As you have seen recently, Schiff has tacked to, you know, basically saying, ‘Mueller didn’t look enough into things, you know, and we need to, you know, be fishing around to try to find, you know, other possible avenues that, you know, through which to get to the president.’”

That’s similar to how Trump himself has characterized congressional Democrats’ oversight efforts, describing them as “Presidential Harassment” because Mueller’s probe has “fallen apart.” But while Trump has attempted to personally smear Mueller—“a much different man than people think,” he tweeted last year—Cobb described him as an “American hero.” “I think the world of Bob Mueller,” Cobb told ABC, noting the special counsel’s military service in Vietnam. “He is a very deliberate guy. And he—but he’s also a class act. And a very justice-oriented person.”

That kind of praise—and his defense of the probe—marks a difference in approach to defending Trump. While Cobb largely advocated for cooperation—“in my first 9 and a half months out of 10 and a half, I was able to prevent the president from going on the attack,” he told ABC—Giuliani has mirrored Trump’s adversarial stance, at times seeming to further complicate the president’s defense. Still, to a man who values loyalty above all else, the Giuliani method may be more appealing. “I was there for the White House,” Cobb said. “Rudy is there to represent the individual.”

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