If it's true that President Donald Trump is in the midst of a legal thicket, it's equally true that Washington is crawling with lawyers whose egos have never spotted a challenge too large.

And yet Trump faces a situation that might have seemed absurd just a couple of years ago: a sitting U.S. president seemingly struggling to find enough lawyers to represent him. (Trump, for his part, calls the notion “Fake News.”)

In the span of just a few days, John Dowd, the top lawyer representing Trump in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, dropped off the Trump team, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Theodore Olson publicly rejected an invitation to join it, and Joseph diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing cited conflicts to upend earlier reports that they had already signed on. Even White House counsel Donald McGahn is reportedly feeling homesick for his former law firm, Jones Day.

Already this week, Winston & Strawn's Chicago-based co-chair Dan Webb and D.C.-based partner Tom Buchanan also cited conflicts in declining a presidential overture, according to the Chicago Tribune. And earlier reports have referred to unconsummated talks to hire Brendan Sullivan of Williams & Connolly, Robert Giuffra Jr. of Sullivan & Cromwell, A.B. Culvahouse of O'Melveny & Myers and Reid Weingarten of Steptoe & Johnson.

In interviews, white-collar defense lawyers said they aren't surprised if many would-be presidential defenders are skittish.

“Obviously, given the constant shuffle of attorneys in and out of the president's legal team, one would be reticent to focus a significant portion of your practice on representing the president, only to find yourself on the sidelines a short time later because the president saw someone he liked better on Fox News,” said Barry Boss, Cozen O'Connor's criminal defense and internal investigations practice co-chair, in an email.

“There is also definitely a stigma to being linked to this president,” added Boss, who leads Cozen's D.C. office. “[A]ny attorney is going to consider whether a connection to this case will result in other clients not wanting to hire him or her in the future, especially if the representation of the president is going to be short-lived.”

One leading white-collar criminal defense attorney in the city said there would be a “revolt” at the lawyer's firm if it decided to lend its services to Trump against the special counsel.

“You won't catch me doing it for all the money in the world,” the lawyer said, pointing to the content and frequency of the president's tweets.

Olson, who was U.S. solicitor general under George W. Bush, rebuffed the president in just a day last week after he was reportedly also courted last year. In a television interview on Monday, he said the personnel changes surrounding Trump were “beyond normal.”

“This is turmoil. It's chaos. it's confusion,” Olson told MSNBC. “It's not good for anything.”

Still, some suggested the idea that Trump is toxic is being overplayed. One white-collar lawyer said many colleagues would still relish the opportunity to represent a sitting president—though the same attorney requested anonymity, citing a potential backlash from clients for expressing that view.

Cozen O'Connor's Boss pointed out what Trump himself had noted in a tweet—that any lawyers now joining the team would need to play catch-up with existing counsel—adding that a new addition could be beholden to the strategic decisions that have already been made.

That “would not be a reason to decline a representation, but it definitely makes it much less attractive,” Boss said.

Then there's the issue of conflicts. The scope of Mueller's probe means that many Washington lawyers have already been retained by special counsel-related clients of their own. In the case of the diGenova firm, Toensing also represents Mark Corallo, a former Trump legal team spokesman, and former Trump campaign co-chair Sam Clovis, which looks to have helped scuttle the couple's chances of representing the president.

But Barry Pollack, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange's D.C.-based attorney who is representing an unnamed client in the Mueller probe, noted some conflicts can be waived if the clients are willing.

“Any expansive investigation with an unknown number of targets and scores of witnesses presents lawyers with challenges navigating potential conflicts,” Pollack said. “Even where a conflict exists, it may not necessarily preclude the lawyer's representation of more than one client.”

Corallo reportedly signed a waiver to allow his attorneys to represent Trump, but it remains unclear what other conflicts may have existed or what position Mueller may have taken on the matter.