Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump who earned a name for himself prosecuting mobsters, told The Washington Post on Thursday that he has joined the president's legal team dealing with Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III's ongoing probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“I’m doing it because I hope we can negotiate an end to this for the good of the country and because I have high regard for the president and for Bob Mueller,” Giuliani told The Post.

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Giuliani, who joins a legal team that has struggled to recruit new members to its ranks, told The Post he has been speaking with the president for weeks about joining his legal team. The former mayor said he would work alongside Trump’s current attorneys, Jay Sekulow and Ty Cobb.

Giuliani will soon take a leave from his law firm, Greenberg Traurig, The Post reports. The former mayor also said he recently formalized his decision, having discussed it over dinner last week at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

Giualini’s entry into Trump’s personal legal team won’t be the first time he’ll cross paths with Mueller. Indeed, Giuliani has previously worked with Mueller at the Justice Department and while he was the mayor of New York. At that time, Mueller was at the FBI.

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