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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — More than eight months after his election, President Trump still attacks “Crooked Hillary Clinton.” But in one way, at least, Mrs. Clinton has become something of a role model for Mr. Trump. As he faces the sort of politically charged investigation that dogged Bill and Hillary Clinton when they were in the White House in the 1990s, Mr. Trump has consciously adopted a strategy from the Clintons’ playbook. Much as the Clintons did, Mr. Trump is assembling a team of lawyers both inside and outside the White House to draw issues related to the investigation away from the rest of the West Wing. And he has embarked on a campaign to discredit the investigators before they can even get very far in their investigation, hoping to do to Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, what the Clintons did to Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel. Advisers to Mr. Trump have studied and privately expressed admiration for the no-holds-barred way the Clintons attacked Mr. Starr’s integrity at every turn in an effort to shift attention from their conduct to his during the Whitewater and Monica S. Lewinsky investigations. The Clintons, Mr. Trump’s advisers said, knew how to “go to the mattresses,” a phrase sometimes used approvingly in this White House, and they added that they were trying to do the same thing. “The key is to go on offense and to define your opponent, and Trump is a master of that in terms of shoring up his base,” said Ron Bonjean, a longtime Republi... Link to the full article to read more