I Allowed McGahn, Others to Cooperate with Mueller: TrumpTop Stories

August 20, 2018 05:58
I Allowed McGahn, Others to Cooperate with Mueller: Trump

(Image source from: USA Today)

According to reports, the White House's top attorney has cooperated extensively with special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 United States election.

Donald McGahn has shared thorough accounts regarding the episodes at the heart of the inquiry into whether Donald Trump obstructed justice, the New York Times reported.

Quoting a dozen current and former White House officials and others informed on the matter, the newspaper said McGahn, the White House counsel, had shared some information the investigators would not have known about or else.

McGahn willingly collaborated with Mueller's team as a regular witness, according to a person familiar with the matter, as the White House asked many staffers to do. He was not summoned, nor did he speak to them under any kind of proffer or cooperation contract.

The person also said he did not believe McGahn provided Mueller with incriminating information about Trump. McGahn provided the facts but nothing he saw or heard amounts to obstruction of justice by Trump, the person said.

According to the New York Times, McGahn described Trump's attitude toward the Russia investigation and the ways in which the president had urged him to respond to it in at least three voluntary interviews with investigators that totaled 30 hours over the past nine months.

The newspaper reported McGahn's motivation to speak with the special counsel as an unusual move that was in response to a decision by Trump's first team of lawyers to cooperate fully. But it said another motivation was McGahn's fear he could be placed in legal jeopardy because of decisions made in the White House that could be construed as obstruction of justice.

McGahn, the newspaper said, shared information on Trump's comments and actions during the firing of the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) director, James Comey, and the president's obsession with putting a loyalist in charge of the inquiry, including his repeated urging of attorney general Jeff Sessions to claim oversight of it.

The newspaper said McGahn was also centrally involved in Trump's attempts to fire Mueller, which investigators might not have discovered without him.

McGahn cautioned investigators that he had never seen Trump go beyond his legal authority.


A source close to the president said on Saturday the extent of McGahn's cooperation was a tactical or strategic mistake instigated by Trump’s first legal team and it should not have been allowed to happen because McGahn should have been covered by executive privilege. The person also said Trump was not worried because he does not feel he did anything wrong.

On Saturday evening, that claim was supported by a tweet from the president in which he repeated his characterization of Mueller’s investigation as a "witch hunt".

Trump's former personal lawyer, John Dowd, said on Saturday he was aware McGahn had spoken extensively with Mueller’s team.

"The president and Don have a great relationship," the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement. "He appreciates all the hard work he's done, particularly his help and expertise with the judges, and the Supreme Court nominees."

Others in the White House have labeled the relationship as strained.

By Sowmya Sangam

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Donald McGahn  Donald Trump