Trump looked to fire Mueller at start of investigation
U.S. President Donald Trump sought the firing of Robert Mueller III last June, shortly after the special counsel took over the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and he backed off only after White House Counsel Donald McGahn threatened to resign over the move.
The extraordinary showdown was confirmed by two people familiar with the episode, which was first reported by the New York Times.
McGahn did not deliver his resignation threat directly to Trump, but was serious about his threat to leave, according to a person familiar with the episode.
The president’s effort came in the weeks after Mueller’s appointment last May to lead the probe into whether Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russian attempts to tilt the election. Mueller was tapped for the role by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.
The special counsel probe has quickly expanded to include an exploration of whether Trump has attempted to obstruct the ongoing investigation – a line of inquiry that could now include the president’s threatens to fire Mueller himself.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, declined to comment. McGahn did not respond to requests for comment.
A White House spokesman referred questions to Ty Cobb, the attorney coordinating the administration’s response to the Russia investigations, who did not immediately respond to requests for comment. John Dowd, an attorney for the president, declined to comment.
Democrats late Thursday renewed their calls for Congress to pass legislation to protect Mueller and future special counsels from being fired by the president. At least two such bills have been introduced in recent months by members of both parties.
Sen. Mark Warner, Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is conducting its own investigation of Russian interference, said in a statement that “firing the Special Counsel is a red line that the President cannot cross. Any attempt to remove the Special Counsel, pardon key witnesses, or otherwise interfere in the investigation, would be a gross abuse of power, and all members of Congress, from both parties, have a responsibility to our Constitution and to our country to make that clear immediately.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, DConn., a former state attorney general, described Trump’s attempt to oust Mueller as “remarkable and stunning,” adding in an interview, “it shows the need immediately to protect the special counsel.”
Republican Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania said in an interview that McGahn “prevented an Archibald Cox moment,” referring to the special prosecutor ordered fired by President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate investigation.
“I believe now that this revelation has been made public, that there will be increasing pressure to protect Mueller,” Dent added.
Trump was initially calm when Mueller was appointed, surprising White House aides, according to a senior administration official.
But in the weeks that followed, the president spoke with a number of friends and advisers who convinced him that Mueller would dig through his private finances and look beyond questions of collusion with Russians. They warned that the probe could last years and would ruin his first term in office.
At the time, Trump’s legal team was urging him to take an aggressive posture toward the special counsel and was compiling arguments about why Mueller could not be impartial.
Among the points cited: an allegation that Mueller had gotten into a dispute over membership fees before he resigned from a Trump-owned golf course in northern Virginia in 2011.
The Washington Post’s Robert Costa, Ed O’Keefe, Philip Rucker, Sean Sullivan and Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.