President Trump on Wednesday called White House counsel Don McGahn a “good guy” even though McGahn is expected to leave in the coming months, and said he has no worries about what McGahn might have told special counsel Robert Mueller’s team in a recent series of interviews.
“Don McGahn’s a really good guy, been with me for a long time,” Trump told reporters during an event announcing a grant for drug-free communities support program. “Privately before this, he represented me. He’s been here now, it’ll be almost two years. A lot of affection for Don.”
The president said he expects McGahn, who also served as the top lawyer for Trump’s presidential campaign, will join the private sector, and predicted he’ll do “really well.”
“He’s done an excellent job,” Trump said.
The president told reporters he is not concerned with what the White House’s top lawyer might have told Mueller and his team, who he reportedly has been cooperating with. According to the New York Times, McGahn met with the special counsel’s investigators for at least three interviews that spanned 30 hours.
“I knew he was going also. I had to approve it,” Trump said of McGahn’s meetings.
The president said he did not claim executive privilege.
“We do everything straight; we do everything by the book,” he said.
Trump announced on Twitter earlier Wednesday that McGahn would be leaving his post at the White House in the fall after the Senate confirms Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
[Related: Chuck Grassley tells Trump: You can’t let Don McGahn go]
