President Trump argued that no other president has been as transparent as he or his administration has been, after reporters pressed him on whether he would permit former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify before lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
“In the history of our country, there has never been a president that’s been more transparent than me or the Trump administration,” Trump told reporters Friday. “I let White House counsel McGahn testify. I let everybody testify. I think McGahn — excuse me, I think McGahn was in there for 30 hours. Who ever heard of such a thing?”
Trump said that his administration handed over nearly 1.5 million documents to the Justice Department as part of the investigation, but accused Democrats of still not being satisfied.
“With all of this, with all of this, with all of this transparency, we finished, no collusion, no obstruction, right?” Trump said. “Then I get out the first day, they’re saying let’s do it again. I said that’s enough. We have to run a country.”
“So if I’m guilty of anything, it’s that I have been a great president, and the Democrats don’t like it,” Trump said. “Which is a shame.”
After special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report was released last week, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., moved to subpoena McGahn for testimony and for documents related to obstruction of justice.
Mueller’s report concluded that the Trump campaign did not collude with the Kremlin during the 2016 election. However, it did not clear Trump of obstruction of justice and said Mueller investigated 10 instances of potential obstruction.
For example, the New York Times first reported in 2018 that Trump instructed McGahn to fire Mueller, but McGahn refused to comply with the order and threatened he would step down from his post.
[Related: Trump denies he ever ordered Don McGahn to fire Robert Mueller]
According to federal regulations, Mueller could only be fired by the attorney general. Since then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein oversaw the investigation and was the only one who could have fired Mueller.
