January 25, 2108: The New York Times Reports - President Trump Wanted to Fire Robert Mueller

 

1/25/18: The New York Times reports that the president wanted to fire Robert Mueller last summer. This makes Sean Hannity furious. On his nightly show he calls the story “Fake News.” His sources cannot confirm the Times story. Boy does that piss Hannity off! He warns loyal Fox News fans the Times is “trying to distract you.” Trump would never think of firing….wait….what? 

Hannity is informed that, yes, Fox sources are confirming the story. What can a right-wing shill do in this situation? 

Hannity cuts to a car chase.

 

BLOGGER’S NOTE: For two years, President Trump stalls investigators in every way imaginable. That includes ignoring Congressional subpoenas and forbidding, for example, White House Chief Counsel Don McGahn from appearing before Congress to testify. This works until he leaves office. When McGahn appears, in June 2021, he tells lawmakers he repeatedly warned Trump. If he fired Mueller, it might constitute obstruction of justice. When the president kept pushing him to do so, McGahn said he knew he had to be prepared to resign. 

“It was the feeling of being trapped and being felt that I was being pushed to do something that was really not in the best interests of the president, in addition to my own concerns about my role,” McGahn said. “And I felt, at that point, you have to be prepared to walk away, particularly as a lawyer, in certain situations.”

 

McGahn also confirmed an incident cited in the Mueller Report. When Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed the special counsel, Trump responded angrily, “This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency.” 

(For a bit more context, the full reaction was: “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I’m fucked.”) 

McGahn bolstered several of the main contentions laid out by Robert Mueller and his team of investigators – and had he been allowed to testify earlier, might have sunk the president’s leaky boat. 

You might be able to twist the McGahn testimony to make it sound less damning, assuming you loved Trump more than chocolate sauce. 

He was basically confirming: 

A.      Trump did want to obstruct justice. He repeatedly asked to have Mueller fired. 

B.      McGahn didn’t want to have any part in firing Mueller, in part because he realized he might be subject to a felony charge of obstruction of justice if he carried out Trump’s orders. 

C.     Trump did explode when Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed Mueller. 

D.     It worried McGahn (he testified further) when Trump started trying to remove Sessions. 

E.      That would be more obstruction of justice. 

F.      Trump lied, McGahn said, when he denied the accuracy of a report that Trump wanted to fire Mueller. 

G.     McGahn told lawmakers he was the source for that story. (See “A,” above.) 

H.    The “Fake News” wasn’t fake at all.

 

Trump’s exact words, when reporters asked him, on January 26, 2018, if he had ever tried to have Mueller fired, were, It’s “fake news, folks, fake news. Typical New York Times fake stories.”