Trump says he allowed counsel to cooperate with Mueller probe
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump on Sunday attacked The New York Times over a report about a White House counsel cooperating with the Russia probe, with the US president saying he “allowed it” because he had “nothing to hide”.
The Times on Saturday reported that Don McGahn, the counsel, spoke to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team for 30 hours and had shared details about Trump’s comments and actions during the firing of FBI director James Comey, and about the president’s desire for a loyalist to take charge of the probe.
“For a lawyer to share so much with investigators scrutinising his client is unusual,” the report noted, suggesting that while McGahn had cooperated fully as decided by a team of Trump’s lawyers, he was unsure of the merit of that strategy. The report said he feared he was being set up to take the fall for any wrongdoing and so decided to “to do as much as possible to cooperate” to demonstrate he had done nothing wrong.
After an uncharacteristically mild response on Saturday, he hit back with string of tweets on Sunday by attacking the report, the Times and the Mueller probe.
“The failing @nytimes wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel (sic) Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel, he must be a John Dean type “RAT.” But I allowed him and all others to testify - I didn’t have to. I have nothing to hide,” he said in one post referring to White House counsel John Dean, whose decision to cooperate with the Watergate investigation had contributed to the fall of then president Richard Nixon.
The New York Times defended its news report and said tweeted: “The New York Times stands behind the reporting of our Pulitzer-Prize winning reporters.”
Trump tweeted that he has “demanded transparency so that this Rigged and Disgusting Witch Hunt can come to a close. So many lives have been ruined over nothing - McCarthyism at its WORST! Yet Mueller & his gang of Dems refuse to look at the real crimes on the other side - Media is even worse!”
He is seeking to damage the Mueller probe comparing it to a highly controversial congressional investigation conducted by Republican senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s to hunt alleged communist infiltrators. His claims were later called a fraud and a hoax.