Robert Mueller could not be special counsel because he was once a member of Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., President Trump allegedly said in May 2017 when the former FBI director took over the investigation into Russian election interference.
According to a new book by Bob Woodward, “Fear: Trump in the White House,” that was obtained by the Washington Examiner on Wednesday, Trump said Mueller had too many conflicts to be special counsel.
One of those conflicts was his membership at the Virginia golf course, from which Mueller eventually resigned due to a dispute over fees. Also, Mueller’s law firm had previously represented Trump’s son-in-law, the president said.
But Mueller was special counsel, appointed May 17, 2017, by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, regardless of how much Trump’s anger simmered. Mueller is still investigating Russian election interference and possible connections between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign, as well as the possibility Trump obstructed justice.
“The president erupted into uncontrollable anger, visibly agitated to a degree that no one in his inner circle had witnessed before. It was a harrowing experience,” Woodward writes about May 18, 2017, the day after Rosenstein appointed Mueller.
Trump couldn’t understand how Mueller, who Trump had interviewed the day before to take over the FBI, could have been picked.
“He was just in here, and I didn’t hire him for the FBI,” Trump said. “Of course, he’s got an ax to grind with me. Everybody’s trying to get me. It’s unfair. Now, everybody’s saying I’m going to be impeached.”
Trump later said of interviewing Mueller to become head of the FBI the day before he was appointed as special counsel: “So, two times I’m fucking bushwhacked by the Department of Justice.”
Former aide Rob Porter said that he had never seen Trump so “visibly disturbed” and “raging” — even borderline “paranoid” following Mueller’s appointment.
When he was told that the special counsel had virtually unlimited power to investigate any possible crime, Trump said bitterly: “Now, I have this person who has no accountability who can look into anything, however unrelated it is? They’re going to spend years digging through my whole life and finances.”
“I’m getting punched,” Trump said. “l have to punch back. In order for it to be a fair fight, I have to be fighting.”
Weeks later, John Dowd was hired to be Trump’s lawyer in the Mueller probe.
According to Woodward, Dowd was told by Trump his long list of complaints, which included anger at Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his March 2017 decision to recuse himself from the investigation, which paved the way for Mueller.
Trump was also upset that he found out about Mueller’s appointment by Rosenstein through White House lawyers, and not Sessions himself — who was in the Oval Office with him when he found out.
The book says Dowd agreed with Trump that there could be a “political motive” in appointing Mueller, who had assembled a team of prosecutors that included Democrats.
“This is a royal fuck job by a bunch of losers,” Dowd told Trump, who has often taken to Twitter to criticized Mueller’s team of “Angry Democrats.”
In the 18 months since Mueller took over the investigation, Trump has continued to publicly berate Sessions for his recusal, which Woodward describes as a “wound that remained open.”
“Jeff Sessions, Trump said in one of many versions, was an abject failure. He was not loyal. If he had any balls, if he had been a strong guy, he would’ve just said, I’m not going to recuse. I’m the attorney general, I can do whatever I want,” Woodward writes.
