Top Lawyer in White House Gives Mueller Coveted Details
White House Counsel Has Cooperated Extensively With Mueller’s Obstruction Inquiry
The ex-Quasis through Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman have a very interesting article today that explains it. I think the article explains it. It basically explains it as a consequence of Trump being a dullard.
"It is not clear that Mr. Trump appreciates the extent to which Mr. McGahn has cooperated with the special counsel. The president wrongly believed that Mr. McGahn would act as a personal lawyer would for clients and solely defend his interests to investigators, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking."
Ooh, that's gonna hurt. There is nothing else that sets Trump off like proving that he got had. That is what got H.R. McMaster fired. Expect a tweet! McGahn has given Mueller's team t-h-i-r-t-y hours of interviews. He has told them Trump's innermost thoughts on the matters of the investigation, given them details "that investigators would not have learned of otherwise."
“A prosecutor would kill for that,” said Solomon L. Wisenberg, a deputy independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation, which did not have the same level of cooperation from President Bill Clinton’s lawyers. “Oh my God, it would have been phenomenally helpful to us. It would have been like having the keys to the kingdom.”
Yet, the Pillsbury Dough Girl said for this article:
“The president and Don have a great relationship,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement. “He appreciates all the hard work he’s done, particularly his help and expertise with the judges, and the Supreme Court” nominees.
The article goes on to explain this "unusual" situation grew out of the position of Trump's first legal team (since fired) who "took Trump at his word" that he had done nothing wrong and decided that full cooperation with Mueller was the best way of bringing about a quick exoneration. (Undersigned counsel has previously expressed the view that that legal strategy was damagingly insouciant.) And you know who else thought that it was stupid? Donald F. McGahn. Trump did not assert lawyer-client privilege or executive privilege and his failure to do either made McGahn and his attorney initially deeply suspicious that Trump was setting McGahn up as fall guy the way Nixon attempted to do with John Dean.
Mr. McGahn was stunned, as was Mr. Burck [McGahn's lawyer]... Burck has explained to others that he told White House advisers that they did not appreciate the president’s legal exposure and that it was “insane” that Mr. Trump did not fight a McGahn interview in court.
Even if the president did nothing wrong, Mr. Burck told White House lawyers, the White House has to understand that a client like Mr. Trump probably made politically damaging statements to Mr. McGahn as he weighed whether to intervene in the Russia investigation.
Inside the [White House] counsel’s office, lawyers feared that on the recommendation of Mr. Dowd and Mr. Cobb, the White House was handing Mr. Mueller detailed instructions to take down the president and setting a troubling precedent for future administrations by giving up executive privilege.
Umm, Trump.
Next sentence:
At the same time, Mr. Trump was blaming Mr. McGahn for his legal woes, yet encouraging him to speak to investigators.
I just cannot imagine what Trump was thinking. Dowd and Cobb did not even interview McGahn before he started talking to Team Mueller. I tell you that is just about per se ineffective assistance of counsel. Before I, or any criminal defense attorney I know, lists someone as a defense witness (thereby giving prosecutors the right to interview him or her) I first call 'em up on the telephone machine. "Hey, this is Benjamin Harris. I'm the lawyer for Presumed Innocent. Presumed tells me that you could be a witness for him. Tell me what you know." In more than half the instances I have declined to list the individual as a defense witness. Interviewing them beforehand is just s.o.p.!
"As the months passed on, the misinterpretation by Mr. McGahn and Mr. Burck that the president would let Mr. McGahn be blamed for any obstruction case has become apparent. Rather than placing the blame on Mr. McGahn for possible acts of obstruction, Mr. Trump has yet to even meet with the special counsel, his lawyers resisting an invitation for an interview. Mr. McGahn is still the White House counsel..."
Expect a "You're Fired!" Trump, you are a strange bird, a dullard, a bird brain.
