The Press Reports that the President Tried to Fire the Special Counsel

The Press Reports that the President Tried to Fire the Special Counsel

¶On January 25, 2018, the New York Times reported that in June 2017, the President had ordered McGahn to have the Department of Justice fire the Special Counsel.⁷⁷⁷⁷⁷⁷ Michael S. Schmidt & Maggie Haberman, Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, but Backed Off When White House Counsel Threatened to Quit, New York Times (Jan. 25. 2018). According to the article, "[a]mid the first wave of news media reports that Mr. Mueller was examining a possible obstruction case, the president began to argue that Mr. Mueller had three conflicts of interest that disqualified him from overseeing the investigation."⁷⁷⁸⁷⁷⁸ Michael S. Schmidt & Maggie Haberman, Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, but Backed Off When White House Counsel Threatened to Quit, New York Times (Jan. 25. 2018). The article further reported that "[a]fter receiving the president's order to fire Mr. Mueller, the White House counsel . . . refused to ask the Justice Department to dismiss the special counsel, saying he would quit instead."⁷⁷⁹⁷⁷⁹ Michael S. Schmidt & Maggie Haberman, Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, but Backed Off When White House Counsel Threatened to Quit, New York Times (Jan. 25. 2018). The article stated that the president "ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive."⁷⁸⁰⁷⁸⁰ Michael S. Schmidt & Maggie Haberman, Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, but Backed Off When White House Counsel Threatened to Quit, New York Times (Jan. 25. 2018). After the article was published, the President dismissed the story when asked about it by reporters, saying, "Fake news, folks. Fake news. A typical New York Times fake story."⁷⁸¹⁷⁸¹ Sophie Tatum & Kara Scannell, Trump denies he called for Mueller's firing, CNN (Jan. 26, 2018); Michael S. Schmidt & Maggie Haberman, Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, but Backed Off When White House Counsel Threatened to Quit, New York Times (Jan. 25, 2018).

¶The next day, the Washington Post reported on the same event but added that McGahn had not told the President directly that he intended to resign rather than carry out the directive to have the Special Counsel terminated.⁷⁸²⁷⁸² The Post article stated, "Despite internal objections, Trump decided to assert that Mueller had unacceptable conflicts of interest and moved to remove him from his position. . . . In response, McGahn said he would not remain at the White House if Trump went through with the move. . . . McGahn did not deliver his resignation threat directly to Trump but was serious about his threat to leave." Rosalind S. Helderman & Josh Dawsey, Trump moved to fire Mueller in June, bringing White House counsel to the brink of leaving, Washington Post (Jan. 26, 2018).Show full note In that respect, the Post story clarified the Times story, which could be read to suggest that McGahn had told the President of his intention to quit, causing the President to back down from the order to have the Special Counsel fired.⁷⁸³⁷⁸³ Rosalind S. Helderman & Josh Dawsey, Trump moved to fire Mueller in June, bringing White House counsel to the brink of leaving, Washington Post (Jan. 26, 2018); see McGahn 3/8/17 302, at 3-4.