Special Counsel Robert Mueller has obtained a draft of a letter President Donald Trump composed laying out his reasons for firing FBI director James Comey, the New York Times reported Friday.
According to officials who spoke to the Times, White House legal counsel Donald McGahn blocked the president’s initial letter explaining his rationale for firing Comey, which had been co-written by Stephen Miller. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein then wrote the letter that was ultimately made public and said that Comey was being fired due to his mishandling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Per the Times:
The report largely serves simply to confirm something we’ve long known: President Trump was not actually displeased about Comey’s reopening the Clinton investigation shortly before the presidential election, a decision that helped his presidential chances.
But it also means that Mueller’s investigation has a clear statement of why the White House actually fired Comey. The White House was less than clear at the time, making several equivocating statements both before and after President Trump said in an interview that he had decided to fire Comey even before the recommendation from Rosenstein, calling him a grandstander and complaining that the FBI was in turmoil.
