Trump says ‘nothing to hide’ from Special Counsel Mueller

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said yesterday he had “nothing to hide” from the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, and denied that his top lawyer had turned on him by cooperating with the probe.

Trump, in a series of tweets, denounced the New York Times for a Saturday story saying White House Counsel Don McGahn has cooperated extensively with the special counsel, Robert Mueller. The Times said McGahn had shared detailed accounts about the episodes at the heart of the inquiry into whether Trump obstructed justice.

“I allowed him and all others to testify - I didn’t have to,” Trump said in a tweet. Trump said the newspaper made it seem like McGahn had turned on the president as White House counsel John Dean had in the Watergate investigation of former President Richard Nixon - “when in fact it is just the opposite.”

As White House counsel since the beginning of the Trump administration, McGahn could have rare insight into the president’s thinking.

His lengthy testimony - 30 hours over three voluntary interviews, according to the Times - could be crucial in determining whether the president acted with an improper, or “corrupt,” intent when he took actions like firing former FBI Director James Comey, legal experts said. That is a key part to an obstruction of justice case.

Citing a dozen current and former White House officials and others briefed on the matter, the Times said that McGahn had shared information, some of which the investigators would not have known about.