President Donald Trump’s White House counsel is fully cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, The New York…
President Donald Trump’s White House counsel is fully cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Trump’s chief lawyer, Donald McGahn is providing Mueller with material information related to the president’s behavior during former FBI Director James Comey’s firing. McGahn is also giving background information about Trump’s desire to gain control over the probe, the report notes.
Trump’s first team of criminal lawyers’ initial decision to cooperated fully with Mueller ultimately led to McGahn’s move. The president’s legal team believed their client had nothing to hide and could therefore end the probe quickly if they allowed investigators free access to information.
McGahn and his lawyer, William Burck, worried Trump was setting up McGahn as a fall guy by allowing him to speak freely with Mueller, according to TheNYT. Burck then devised a strategy to have his client cooperate with the probe as much as possible to demonstrate that McGahn did nothing wrong.
The report comes after a series of articles published in 2017 that suggested Trump angled to fire Mueller in June of that year, but did not go through with it after McGahn refused and threatened to quit. Trump claimed at the time that Mueller had multiple conflicts of interest, according to a January NYT report that relied on four unnamed sources. (RELATED: It’s A Risk, But Trump Should Meet With Mueller)
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