Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report confirms media reports that former White House counsel Don McGahn was pressured by Trump to fire Mueller.
According to Mueller’s report, McGahn was directed by Trump to tell Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that “Mueller has to go.” After those conversations, McGahn said he was going to quit, packed up his office, and told then-chief of staff Reince Priebus that the president had asked him to “do crazy shit.”
The media began to report on the story in January 2018, and Trump publicly denied the reports, calling them “fake news.”
Trump then called McGahn into the Oval Office for a private meeting with just him and then-chief of staff John Kelly in attempt to get him to deny that he had been pressured to have Mueller fired.
“McGahn refused and insisted his memory of the president’s direction to remove the Special Counsel was accurate,” Mueller’s report said. McGahn also did not refute the reports when contacted by the media.
“Each time he was approached, McGahn responded that he would not refute the press accounts because they were accurate in reporting on the President’s efforts to have the Special Counsel removed,” the report reads.
Before Mueller’s report was released to the public Thursday morning, there was reportedly fear in the White House among staff about statements witnesses made to investigators that could appear to be damaging to Trump. Specifically, there was worry over McGahn’s testimony, which included at least 30 hours over multiple interviews.
McGahn left the Trump administration last fall and rejoined his former law firm.
The 440-plus-page document released Thursday concluded that Trump did not conspire with Russia. Mueller made no recommendation about obstruction charges, but Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said that Trump did not obstruct justice in a four-page summary of the report released last month.
