HARDY-HAR-HARE!
TRUMP PERKS UP EARS WITH CLAIM THAT ‘NOBODY DISOBEYS MY ORDERS’
He’s all ears.
And so are the people who work for President Trump, dedicated staffers all who would not dare disobey a direct order from their commander-in-chief.
Trump claimed Monday that no one in the White House “disobeys” his commands, striking an authoritarian tone and contradicting one of special counsel Robert Mueller’s key findings.
Trump hopped from one subject to another fielding questions about impeachment and Moscow meddling while schmoozing with aides and their children on the White House South Lawn for the annual Easter egg roll.
“Nobody disobeys my orders,” Trump insisted when asked about the Mueller report’s assertion that aides ignored his demands to interfere in the investigation.
Although he’s not a happy bunny about the political fallout, Trump said he’s “not even a little bit” concerned about the prospect of impeachment, which has picked up more steam among congressional Democrats since Mueller’s report was released Thursday.
Among the aides who ignored Trump’s obstruction orders was former White House counsel Don McGahn, according to Mueller.
McGahn told colleagues that Trump frequently asked him to do “crazy s—t,” including ordering Mueller fired, the special counsel said in his report.
The White House lawyer refused the request and informed the president he’d rather resign, Mueller said. Trump ended up never following up and McGahn stayed on for a while longer until finally leaving the White House in October.
Bob Woodward’s book “Fear,” which details the dysfunction in the Trump administration, opens with a story from Gary Cohn, the former chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs.
Cohn, who became a top economic adviser to the White House, removed an order nullifying a trade agreement with South Korea from the president’s desk to prevent him from signing it.
Gen. James Mattis, the former secretary of defense, also defied the president when he felt it went against the country’s best interest, according to Woodward’s book.
After Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons on his own people, Trump ordered the defense secretary to order the assassination of the head of state.
The general never directly refused Trump, but told his top aides, “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured.”