President Donald Trump last summer attempted to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the New York Times reported Thursday, but the President backed off after White House Counsel Don McGahn threatened to quit over the move.
The New York Times report is based on four people told of the matter, and it comes after Mueller’s team conducted a series of interviews suggesting that the special counsel was examining possible obstruction of justice allegations against Trump.
According to the report, Trump’s personal lawyer Marc E. Kasowitz led the charge into examining possible conflict of interests issues with Mueller conducting the investigation. Trump, in his desire to dismiss Mueller, cited three potential conflicts, according to the Times: Mueller’s cancelation of his membership at one of Trump’s golf courses in 2011 after a disagreement about fees; the representation of Jared Kushner by Mueller’s former private law firm; and that the President interviewed Mueller for the position of FBI director after he fired Jim Comey.
Faced with Trump’s order to instruct the Justice Department to terminate the special counsel, McGahn told the President he would resign instead and argued that firing Mueller would deal a serious blow to Trump’s presidency, according to the Times.
The addition of Ty Cobb to the President’s legal team — where he is in charge of the White House’s response to Mueller’s probe — in July helped to steer Trump away from his impulses to fire the special counsel, the New York Times reported. Cobb has argued that the White House has nothing to hide, and that cooperation with Mueller would help to wrap up the probe quickly.
In a statement for Thursday’s Times’ report, Cobb said that, “We decline to comment out of respect for the Office of the Special Counsel and its process.”
Drip… Drip… SPLASH!!!
I’ll take “obstruction of justice” for $1000, Alex!
Who knew that McGahn had some actual spine.
Can we maybe have Air Force One ordered home without him this time? PLEASE?
What a Thursday, folks! Where to begin?
The case for obstruction of justice is now rock solid with Donald McGahn as an eyewitness. It’s almost certain that Mueller learned of this attempt by Trump to fire him when McGahn was interviewed the day before and the day after the Flynn guilty plea. This would make at least 5 separate counts of obstruction of justice: Flynn firing, Comey firing, attempted Mueller firing, False cover story to NYT to cover up the 6/9/16 meeting at Trump Tower, and various attempts to coordinate with Devin Nunes and co to run interference against the Mueller and Congressional investigations.
McGahn, Priebus and Bannon have the same attorneys. They are all ratting out Trump (and Kushner).
There’s no way that Trump’s attorneys can let Trump appear for an interview. They should await an indictment. A key decision point is whether Mueller seeks a criminal indictment of Trump, or goes the softer route of un-indicted co-conspirator or an impeachment referral. My fervent hope is that he seeks a criminal indictment, because that is the quickest path to getting him out of office.
If Trump is indicted to stand trial before a criminal court, he will challenge it before the SCOTUS. The SCOTUS will likely rule that Trump must stand trial as charged, but that the trial cannot begin until after he leaves office. At that point, Trump will negotiate his exit in exchange for immunity from prosecution (or negotiate for a pardon a la Nixon, or perhaps a plea?). There is no way that someone at his age and with his liabilities is going to risk trial in Washington DC without constitutional protections.
Michael Wolff alluded to this episode in his book where he talked about how Trump was obsessed with firing Mueller, muttering about it in Gollum like tones. That book is part gospel and part Da Vinci code. He left a lot of clues and breadcrumbs to help us and reporters fill out the story.
The path to getting Trump out of office is clear now.