President Donald Trump told since-departed White House counsel Don McGahn that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute Hillary Clinton and James Comey last spring, The New York Times reported Tuesday, citing two people familiar with the conversation.
McGahn “rebuffed the president,” the Times reported, saying he lacked the authority to order prosecutions. A spokesperson for the former White House counsel told the Times:
“Like any client, the president is entitled to confidentiality. Mr. McGahn would point out, though, that the president never, to his knowledge, ordered that anyone prosecute Hillary Clinton or James Comey.”
Per the Times, Trump asked McGahn in their conversation about potentially prosecuting Clinton and Comey “what stopped him from ordering” investigations of the pair. McGahn responded that the move would create a damaging backlash, and followed up with a memo saying as much. The memo outlined potential congressional investigations in Trump’s abuse of power and, potentially, blow back at the ballot box, the Times said.
This isn’t the first report of McGahn refusing Trump’s requests. In the summer of 2017, according to the Times, he told the President he would sooner quit than follow an order to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. McGahn later reportedly refused Trump’s request to issue a statement contradicting that very same New York Times report, instead reminding the President that Trump had asked him to fire Mueller.
This post has been updated.
Fat Nixon is not as good as OG Nixon.
“Can’t I just have show trials and summary executions of Clinton and Comey? Putin does that”, Trump reportedly said to associates.
It would be good if the article explained how unConstitutional this is, how frightening, and how not surprising. Trump is trying to turn the entire justice system to his whim, and if he succeeds that’s going to mark a big step towards the end of freedom in the US. Because if Trump gets away with it, then nothing stops the next president from doing the same thing.
Stuff like this is a huge deal, and the fact that 35% of the nation will be perfectly fine with such a total abrogation of our freedoms is perhaps the largest challenge the US has faced, at least in the past 150 years.
I bet you anything he sees no difference between a straight-up putsch like that, and putting on the Miss America pageant.
Like, I bet he’s eager to get to the color schemes and catering choices… his “wheelhouse.”
Prosecuting political opponents. Isn’t that what dictators do in third world countries?