Two weeks ago, Michael Cohen picked up his cell phone and dialed a number that a few mutual friends suggested he call. Lanny Davis answered the line on the other end. Cohen and Davis, of course, were unlikely compatriots. The former, Donald Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer, had made his name vociferously defending his old boss until F.B.I. agents seized millions of documents from his homes and office this spring; the looming threat of indictment has subsequently made him the subject of Washington’s favorite morality tale. Davis, meanwhile, served as an official legal adviser in the Clinton White House amid special counsel Ken Starr’s investigation. During the bewildering public psychodrama that ensued, he became an equally determined surrogate during impeachment proceedings. He remains an ardent Clinton supporter to this day. Earlier this year, he released a book in which he ripped former F.B.I. director James Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server, arguing that it cost her the 2016 presidential election.

Now, Cohen was asking Davis’s counsel. “Is this the Michael Cohen?” Davis asked through the phone. “Is this the Lanny Davis?” Cohen replied. It took Davis all of a minute to recognize the Five Towns, Long Island drawl coming through his receiver. From there, they spent two weeks getting to know one another on the phone, hammering out what could be a strategy for Cohen going forward, as he prepares for the next stage of his legal fight—which will mostly play out privately—and a looming public-relations battle with those in Trump’s orbit. Politics, particularly in the Trump age, makes for unlikely bedfellows.

The Cohen-Davis alliance, first reported earlier this week by The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman, and recently illuminated by my colleague Abigail Tracy, suggests the commencement of a new act in Cohen’s Shakespearean tragicomedy. Since I interviewed him in March about the Stormy Daniels affair, and after the government executed its search warrants, Cohen had been largely silenced by his attorneys, either not responding to reporters' requests for comment or giving terse, flat denials. But his interview with another former Clintonite, George Stephanopoulos, proved that he is ready to pre-empt what he expects to be the next chapter, both legally and reputationally. Cohen hired Guy Petrillo, a former head of the criminal division in the Southern District of New York—the same group conducting his investigation—to handle his defense going forward. After Cohen sat down for an interview with Stephanopoulos last week, Davis agreed to join Petrillo on Cohen’s legal team. “Like most of America, I have been following the matter regarding Michael Cohen with great interest,” Davis said in a statement. “As an attorney, I have talked to Michael many times in the last two weeks. Then I read his words published on July 2, and I recognized his sincerity. Michael Cohen deserves to tell his side of the story—subject, of course, to the advice of counsel.” (Cohen has not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing, nor has he met with federal prosecutors, according to people familiar with the situation.)

Davis’s hiring appears to suggest a reset button—a way to possibly tip-toe around the fact that any good lawyer, like Petrillo, or Steve Ryan, who represented Cohen for more than a year until this week, would recommend that their client stay quiet. Davis’s presence will provide a first line of defense against what those around Cohen believe will be a campaign against his credibility, largely waged by Trump surrogates. Davis and Cohen will follow Petrillo’s guidance when it comes to speaking with the media, which likely will mean fewer, if any, on the record interviews. People around Cohen believe that some of the attitudes already expressed by Trump and his new attorney Rudy Giuliani—that Trump “liked” Cohen, in the past tense, for one, and the insistence that Cohen had his own businesses apart from Trump—mark the beginning of the onslaught. On Sunday, Giuliani told Chuck Todd on NBC’s Meet the Press that if Cohen “wants to cooperate, I think it’s great,” and that it’s a good development because “it will lead to nothing.” These people also believe that some of Trump’s family members, including Don Jr. and Jared Kushner, have also discussed ways to distance themselves from him. Cohen, for his part, seems game to fight back. “For a year and a half, I’ve been silent,” Cohen told friends around the time he called Davis. “What has silence gotten me? It’s ruined my business. It’s ruined my wife’s life. It’s ruined my children’s lives. I’ve been a punching bag for everybody. Why am I going to continue to be silent?”