Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, but Backed Off When Lawyer Threatened to Quit
WASHINGTON — President Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.
The West Wing confrontation marks the first time Mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the special counsel. Mr. Mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and former senior White House officials in his inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice.
Amid the first wave of news media reports that Mr. Mueller was examining a possible obstruction case, the president began to argue that Mr. Mueller had three conflicts of interest that disqualified him from overseeing the investigation, two of the people said.
First, he claimed that a dispute years ago over fees at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., had prompted Mr. Mueller, the F.B.I. director at the time, to resign his membership. The president also said Mr. Mueller could not be impartial because he had most recently worked for the law firm that previously represented the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Finally, the president said, Mr. Mueller had been interviewed to return as the F.B.I. director the day before he was appointed special counsel in May.
After receiving the president’s order to fire Mr. Mueller, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, refused to ask the Justice Department to dismiss the special counsel, saying he would quit instead, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a continuing investigation.
Mr. McGahn disagreed with the president’s case and told senior White House officials that firing Mr. Mueller would have a catastrophic effect on Mr. Trump’s presidency. Mr. McGahn also told White House officials that Mr. Trump would not follow through on the dismissal on his own. The president then backed off.
Ty Cobb, who manages the White House’s relationship with Mr. Mueller’s office, said in a statement, “We decline to comment out of respect for the Office of the Special Counsel and its process.”
Mr. McGahn, a longtime Republican campaign finance lawyer in Washington who served on the Federal Election Commission, was the top lawyer on Mr. Trump’s campaign. He has been involved in nearly every key decision Mr. Trump has made — like the firing of the former F.B.I. director — that is being scrutinized by Mr. Mueller.
Mr. McGahn was also concerned that firing the special counsel would incite more questions about whether the White House was trying to obstruct the Russia investigation.
Around the time Mr. Trump wanted to fire Mr. Mueller, the president’s legal team, led then by his longtime personal lawyer in New York, Marc E. Kasowitz, was taking an adversarial approach to the Russia investigation. The president’s lawyers were digging into potential conflict-of-interest issues for Mr. Mueller and his team, according to current and former White House officials, and news media reports revealed that several of Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors had donated to Democrats.
Mr. Mueller could not legally have considered political affiliations when making hiring decisions. But for Mr. Trump’s supporters, it reinforced the idea that, although Mr. Mueller is a Republican, he had assembled a team of Democrats to take down the president.
Another option that Mr. Trump considered in discussions with his advisers was dismissing the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, and elevating the department’s No. 3 official, Rachel Brand, to oversee Mr. Mueller. Mr. Rosenstein has overseen the investigation since March, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself.
Mr. Trump has significantly ratcheted back his criticisms of Mr. Mueller since he hired Mr. Cobb for his legal team in July. A veteran of several high-profile Washington controversies, Mr. Cobb has known Mr. Mueller for decades, dating to their early careers in the Justice Department.
He advised Mr. Trump that he had nothing to gain from combat with Mr. Mueller, a highly respected former prosecutor and F.B.I. director who has subpoena power as special counsel. Since Mr. Cobb’s arrival, the White House has operated on the premise that the quickest way to clear the cloud of suspicion was to cooperate with Mr. Mueller, not to fight him.
Nonetheless, Mr. Trump has wavered for months about whether he wants to fire Mr. Mueller, whose job security is an omnipresent concern among the president’s legal team and close aides. The president’s lawyers, including Mr. Cobb, have tried to keep Mr. Trump calm by assuring him for months, amid new revelations about the inquiry, that it is close to ending.
Mr. Trump has long demonstrated a preoccupation with those who have overseen the Russia investigation. In March, after Mr. McGahn failed to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the inquiry, Mr. Trump complained that he needed someone loyal to oversee the Justice Department.
The former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said Mr. Trump asked him for loyalty and encouraged him to drop an investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. Mr. Comey said he sidestepped those requests. He was soon fired.
In an interview with The New York Times in the Oval Office in July, the president pointedly kept open the option of firing Mr. Mueller, saying that the special counsel would be passing a red line if his investigation expanded to look at Mr. Trump’s finances. Mr. Trump said he never would have made Mr. Sessions the attorney general if he had known he would recuse himself from the investigation.
Last month, as Republicans were increasing their attacks on the special counsel, Mr. Trump said in an interview with The Times that he believed Mr. Mueller was going to treat him fairly.
“No, it doesn’t bother me because I hope that he’s going to be fair,” Mr. Trump said in response to a question about whether it bothered him that Mr. Mueller had not yet ended his investigation. “I think that he’s going to be fair.”
Mr. Trump added: “There’s been no collusion. But I think he’s going to be fair.”
https://a.msn.com/r/2/AAvbhvl?m=en-us
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I know some of you on here will look at this and, say "Oh MSN, gotta be fake", no, MSN is were the link came from but, it is a New York Times story.
I thought about that. By tomorrow it will be on other news sources, hard to deny then.
they'll have some spinningly fabulous new talking points to throw out at us,
skirting the CoC [ph]
Yep, I hear the Washington Post has picked this up as well.
skirting the CoC [ph]
trump is already calling it fake news
That's how I know it's true
It might as well be fake news, since it is old news and non news. Last time I checked, Trump had not fired Mueller. So once again, another nothing burger. More troublesome news keeps popping about Mueller concerning his honesty and credibility.
Yet a conversation between acquaintances on an open air tarmac years ago is a relevant as this mornings tea. There is good reason trump wanted Mueller gone, he knows damn well he isn't dealing with someone of his appointees caliber and that is a serious threat to his freedom.
I could certainly be wrong, but I understood it to be OUTSIDE on the tarmac as any reference to the conversation was not about in the plane but on the tarmac and all aircraft sit on the tarmac. Regardless it gets trotted out endlessly in fact it is the new "lock her up" of the month club. Trump neds to use everything and anything to get Mueller gone so he can get someone that will go along to get along or another of his uniquely unqualified appointees to fill the slot. That seasoned investigator is like a cobra in a chicken coup.
This tarmac meeting?
Sorry I cannot cut and paste from this source.
The only relevance this event still holds has to do with the integrity of the Attorney General under Obama. She should never have allowed the meeting to take place during an on going investigation of H. Clinton .. the meeting also brought into question as to whether there was actually an official investigation underway (when days later Comey came out and announced no charges would be leveled at H. Even though he said she was extremely careless (should read gross negligence) in the handling of classified information - but NO intent could be proven (interesting)
Yet ultimately the event is history, just as the articles about the current Presidents desire to fire Mueller - it is not like this was some kind of secret that Trump wanted the investigation over with, and was angered by Mueller going after personal information not pertaining in anyway to the subject of the probe - which is whether or not the Trump Campaign colluded with Russia in order to discredit H. and make Trump president. (every charge leveled by the probe thus far has nothing to do with collusion)
All of it coming from Nunes, that is really fake news.
This is a nothing burger, more smoke from Trump.
Then why is Trump's wet dream seeing Mueller fired??
You did know Mueller is a lifelong republican, right? No one, on either side of the aisle is questioning Mueller's integrity except for trump and fox news. What happened to their constant attacks on him that lasted over a month? As soon as trump stopped, fox fake news stopped too... Did you ever ask yourself WHY? If you seriously think that fox news is not the propaganda machine for trump, you are mistaken.
He wanted to fire him but decided against it when McGahn said he would quit. What's so hard to accept about that? People change their minds about doing things, and get talked out of doing things, that they want to do, all the time.
That alone isn't, no, but it goes to his state of mind, his intent, and helps to qualify the idea that other things he did, such as actually firing Comey, WERE an attempt at obstructing justice. Trump's obstruction of justice seems pretty obvious to most Americans, just based on what we know so far, and Mueller has a lot more evidence which we have yet to learn.
That's weird....since "Justice" STILL prods on.
I guess firing Comey didn't hinder anything what-so-ever huh.
You'd think everyone would STILL be onboard of him being fired, since Liberals were onboard about him being "Fired" after his Hillary such-and-such.....Before he actually WAS !
Since Trump "FIRED" him, Liberals are all in a tizzy. They didn't have the gutz to do it themselves....although they will SAY they did....."Want" to.
Ahhh, now we have the "fox flock" report. LOL It makes it so much easier, about 3 days before the mega-donors give their orders to trump, they call it in to fox(news) and then let fox tell trump AND-stir up the fox flock in one simple step. It spreads through to all the other branches of the club who feel free to add or subtract their own details or make a new "news" story based on that story..
Don't have to have any more of them time-wasting meetings where Politicians want to drink and worship the boss and even expect get fed in the bargain like they weren't just employees. it's even easier then phone calls.
In between transmitting orders, fox rotates through it back-up stirrers, like abortion, or the evil of Dems, the newest conspiracy theory or recycle a old one, black people, Obama, Hillary, etc. Oh! almost forgot a biggie, religious prosecution.
Sure took a long time to find out this oblivious and horrible fact, and it seems a lot like something someone desperate might string together to try to make a tow-cable out of loose threads. It's not like trump and his band haven't been looking for some dirt on Mueller since he was brought in.
You need to quit watching fake news CNN so much, it gets you all confused.
Not the least confused by CNN, they tend to get stuck on plane accidents and such so I don't watch them a lot. So what? Oh yeah, top of the "trump news hit list" so they must have said something against (sigh) the Donald or something good about Clinton.
LOL
Well Trump claimed for 18 months that the REAL unemployment rate was over 40%,
until he was elected and now every day HE breaks a new record...........4.1%,
lol
Some of us here are noting the timing of this leaked & undocumented "info" - always after Trump has a good week.
What will progressives do to thwart the fantastic economic growth?
You'd rather they'd save it to pile it on when "the don" has yet another bad week?
You'd rather they'd save it to pile it on when "the don" has yet another bad week?
So, if Fox News brings up missing memos and partisan bias of a few FBI agents it's a distraction and an attack on all law enforcement, but if the left wing media sits on a story that happened last summer and just happens to release it when the economy is doing great and an explosive memo is about to be released then it's just a coincidence?
The trouble for the left wing nut hatches, is that once again...there is no there, there. Yet another nothing burger, this time missing both the meat and the bread.
With a Nunes on the side, do we have a memogate?
All this article does is show that Mr. McGahn probably now regrets convincing Trump to not fire Mueller.
I'm sure that Mr. Dean, Nixon's White House counsel thinks the same way you do about it. Remember, Dean went along with Nixon firing Cox, the special counsel during Watergate. How did that work out for Tricky Dicky and, Dean?
Are there 19 minutes of recordings missing from White House meetings?
I sure do regret it. Had the WHShitbag® gotten his way back then (June 2017), he would have been toast long ago and then we could work on Pence---he's dirty as shit, too.
This cracks me up...
Preet Bahara - head of the trump/russia investigation - fired by trump...
Sally Yates - head of the trump/russia investigation - fired by trump...
James Comey - head of the trump/russia investigation - fired by trump...
And had trump fired Mueller...
Robert Mueller - head of the trump/russia investigation - fired by trump...
.
And the cons would have seen absolutely NOTHING wrong with this at all. One can only speculate as to how they would have seen Hillary doing the EXACT same thing had she been elected. Naw, I am sure they wouldn't haven seen ANYTHING at all wrong with it. /sarc
The time has come for Mueller to show his hand or fold. If there were really anything out there it would have been leaked long ago.
Time to clean house at the top of the FBI. Time to get a new AG. Sessions isn't up to the job.
With what is FACT, "leaked" it is not required.
To criticize Mueller for running a disciplined investigation, is ridiculously hypocritical, and shows signs of one who doesn't understand how a proper and professional investigation should be performed.
C'mon Aerosmith ' No more, No more '
He is now grasping at anything in order to charge something. So far he has charged manufactured crimes. Nothing related to the reason he was appointed.
He is doing a professional investigation? He goes out and hires every Clinton sycophant to be a part of the investigation and that is professional?
The more he digs the worse the left looks. The longer it goes on the worse the left looks. It's time for a special prosecutor to investigate the Obama DOJ and the Clintonistas there.
Start by getting rid of Jeff Sessions and put a real bull dog in charge.
Janet Renoe ??
Good one Dave! She would send Mueller to Cuba.
Except she passed away a couple of years ago.
That's what made Dave's comment so funny.
You mean Flynn and Papadapolous confessed to crimes they didn't do? And Rick Gates is now cooperating with Mueller just for the helluvit?
Neither were crimes within the scope of the investigation. Flynn took a deal to protect his son for crimes that had nothing to do with the election and the other idiot had no crime to lie about so why did he lie? Because he is just an idiot.
The real criminality comes from the illegal unmasking for political purposes by the Obama administration.
The longer this goes on the worse it will be for dems.
The time has come for Mueller to show his hand or fold.
lol - says you? Someone has delusions of grandeur.
Careful - you might get suspended again for name calling.
That's nothing, we aren't even allowed to insult the Catholic Church. If we can't even disparage a large, corrupt organization like the CC, we sure as hell shouldn't be able to disparage each other. By the way, I just called the CC corrupt, which is a disparaging term, and, technically, a violation. No shit.
It has gotten totally out of hand, and I have taken the lead at publicizing it here. I’ve probably posted two or three dozen comments directly criticizing the queen who is making her own rules as she goes, and falsely claiming that it is all within the code of conduct. Currently, I am under a “fatwa”. Find that in the CoC.
A fatwa?? Lol, isn't that when people want to kill you? Geez Hal, the COC is REALLY getting out of hand now!
Quit your whining and adjust a bit when needed !
it ain't fucking hard.
Oh Nooooo, I cussed ONCE.....AGAIN !
Liberal snowflakes.....
In need of some counseling there Hal. ?
You might be funny if you had a clue about what you are talking about.
Been there !
NEVER worried about it.
You must be kidding? You have over a dozen this month alone.
Hal,
The only thing that I have done, that is not specific to the CoC is issuing fatwas (that is meant to be a joke), and I did that because we don't have an ignore function and to prevent useless inflammatory threads like this one.
It is Me,
Knock it off with the gratiatus insults.
You have over a dozen this month alone.
I waiting for the day when it hits you that it’s not everybody else that is the problem here.
I’m afraid we might have lost Sixpicks to the censorship.
I'm Verklempt right now....But....Roger !
Whew, I sure am glad there aren't REAL fatwas here! It's ok if you punish offending members with restrictions and such, but death is a little too severe.
You conveniently missed that part huh.
Sorry Hal, but some of us here want to have a discussion and not a string of gratuitous insults.
Well then, I guess some milquetoast snowflakes will create the rules for all members about what free speech and creativity is all about.
By the way, your highness, why are you making meta comments when you just warned ME (and only me) not to do just that? Write that new rule down people - the queen gets to make rules, apply them at will, hold only certain people to them, and ignore them herself.
Because you have been metaing all over the place none stop. In fact, you have worn it out. Take it to Metafied along with any one else who is complaining, or it will be deleted as off topic. Last warning.
Two hours ago you told me to stop, and even though I had more to say about this I honored the queen’s request. Two hours later you just couldn’t help yourself from furthering the meta conversation yourself in the very place you outlawed it.
As I said, one of these days it just might occur to you that it is you that are the problem.
You know.. I just looked through the comments and it is hard to tell when you made a comment since you have made so many that I can't tell when you made what.
So now I am delusional?
If insult is all you have don't bother talking to me.
>-.---.-
Well, acting like you get to decide when Mueller needs to "put his cards on the table" would be just a start.
I seem to recall you stayed on NV until the very last day. Boy, how you hated that place.
I can say what I damn well please! I can express any opinion I want! If you don't like it then tough shit! You can express that I am delusional then I can express that you are arrogant.
There are three or four leftist bastards here that have turned this place into a leftist echo chamber. What started as a place of promise has now become a pit. I took a week or so away from this place to finish a desk and table. In that time many of the conservative members have left. Now about all I see are the same leftist bastards posting.
I guess it's time to pull the plug and leave this place to the echo chamber.
>-.---.-
Comment removed for skirting the CoC [ph]
Skirting the CoC [ph]
Awww, what a shame that you aren't the one who gets to decide that.
>-.---.-
Zoom zoom!
At this point, what difference does it make?
Nice!
An ode to she who shall not be named ....
Learn your Islam:
And apparently all you have to do that have a fatwa lifted is ask the queen to do so ... provided that she is in the right mood at the right time. Someone should have told that to Salman Rushdie - it could have saved him so much aggravation.
8 Perrie Halpern R.A. 5 hours ago
Here's a more detailed list of the basis for WHSthitbag®'s obstruction of justice case (the dates start in 2017):
Perrie, this seed has gone off the rails so, I am closing it.
Perrie, this seed has gone off the rails so, I am closing it.