The White House has repeatedly tried to get former White House counsel Don McGahn to release a statement saying President Trump did not obstruct justice, but McGahn has rebuffed the requests.
Before and after the release of the redacted Mueller Report, former White House counsel Don McGahn declined at least two requests from the White House asking him to publicly declare that President Trump had not obstructed justice, according to reports published Friday by The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. The first request came after attorney general William Barr allowed the White House to get an advance look at the report, which confirmed that McGahn testified that he had refused a June 2017 directive from Trump to facilitate the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller. McGahn had apparently told the Mueller team that he didn’t think Trump had tried to obstruct justice, but that opinion was not included in the report. The White House and Trump wanted his public support in the political fight to come, but they didn’t get it.
Then, after the redacted report came out and McGahn’s testimony about Trump’s obstruction efforts became a key focal point, the White House, at Trump’s request, once asked McGahn to release a statement clearing the president. When McGahn again declined, Trump and his allies intensified their efforts to discredit the former White House counsel, with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani subsequently saying on CNN that McGahn was “hopelessly confused” about what happened.
