Trump says he’s not worried about what White House counsel told prosecutors

President Donald Trump’s top White House lawyer, Don Mcgahn, attends a event in the Cabinet Room of the White House on May 24 in Washington, D.C.

campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who is on trial on tax evasion and bank fraud charges.

Trump, who in recent months has issued presidential pardons to some political supporters, last week took the highly unusual step of publicly opining about the case while the jury, which is not sequestered, was still out. The president said Manafort had been treated badly and was a “very good person.”

For the past week, the White House has also been confronted with a steady drip of allegations by fired presidential aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, who became a reality-show star under Trump’s tutelage. She is promoting a book billed as a tell-all about her months in the White House, with some elements of her story backed by surreptitiously made recordings. On Sunday, she said on MSNBC that Trump is trying to start a “race war.”

In addition, the president has prompted an outcry by stripping former CIA Director John Brennan, an outspoken critic, of his security clearance, with the White House indicating more such revocations are in the works. Dozens of retired intelligence professionals, including prominent former agency chiefs, have called the president’s move against Brennan an act of petty vengeance motivated by an improper desire to muzzle critics.

National security adviser John Bolton, defending the decision to nullify Brennan’s security clearance, suggested the former CIA director’s denunciations of Trump were prompted by his knowledge of classified matters – implying, perhaps inadvertently, that such secret documentation of wrongdoing

exists.

“A number of people have commented that (Brennan) couldn’t be in the position he’s in, of criticizing President Trump and his so-called collusion with Russia, unless he did use classified information,” Bolton said on ABC’S “This Week.”

But Bolton said he didn’t know “the specifics” and did not offer any proof that Brennan had improperly cited classified information, even indirectly.

Trump, not for the first time, invoked the Mccarthy era in his Sunday posts, echoing his contention that the Mueller investigation is a witch hunt akin to the late Wisconsin’s senator’s crusade against supposed Communist sympathizers in the U.S. government in the 1950s.

“Mueller and his gang ... make Joseph Mccarthy look like a baby!” the president wrote.

Some national security figures also pointed to the Mccarthy precedent – but in connection with the rationale employed by Trump to revoke security clearances of former intelligence officials who voice dissent.

Retired Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Trump’s clearance revocations were reminiscent of the Mccarthy era and of Nixon’s famous “enemies list.” Former senior officials retain their security clearances so they can be consulted for advice in the event of a national emergency or international crisis.

Mullen, on “Fox News Sunday,” faulted Brennan for the overtly political tone of some of his remarks, but nonetheless said retaliation for such speech “historically has proven incredibly problematic for the country.”