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WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has asked former White House lawyer Donald McGahn to publicly declare last month that he did not believe that the president had been guilty of criminal conduct while he was not guilty. he sought to exercise control over the investigation of Russia. people familiar with the episode.
McGahn had told the special advocate's office that he did not think Trump's actions had reached the degree of obstruction of justice, said two people aware of his talks.
However, Mueller's report concluded with substantial evidence that the president had obstructed justice when he had pushed McGahn to help oust special advocate Robert Mueller III. McGahn's point of view was not revealed in the report.
As Trump's lawyers prepared for Mueller's report last month, the White House asked McGahn to release a statement publicly disclosing what he told Mueller's team, according to regulars. discussions.
Emmet Flood, a White House lawyer responsible for responding to the investigation in the Mueller case, contacted McGahn's lawyer, William Burck, on behalf of Trump, to ask him to Consider a statement when the report was published, they said.
But Attorney General William Barr had already concluded that the evidence was insufficient to charge the president with criminal obstruction. Burck also concluded that there was no reason for McGahn, as a witness, to intervene.
In a statement on Friday night, Burck refused to expand talks with Flood but said the White House's request was not inappropriate.
"We did not see it as a kind of threat or something sinister," Burck said. "It was a professional and cordial request."
White House officials declined to comment.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the request to McGahn.
McGahn's refusal to make a public statement seemed to bother the president and some of his associates, who were convinced that McGahn was unnecessarily uncooperative, people said.
After the release of the report, Trump attacked McGahn on Twitter and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, started asking questions about McGahn's credibility and version of events. He told The Washington Post that McGahn should have left the White House when he thought Trump had been guilty of a crime.
In an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN, Giuliani said McGahn was "wrong" about what Trump had asked him and "desperately confused".
In the middle of Giuliani's public assault on McGahn, Burck contacted the White House to complain that these statements were reckless, according to a person familiar with the discussion.
The public brawl was taking place at the same time that the House Judiciary Committee had assigned McGahn for his records and testimony and threatened to scorn him if he did not comply.
Senior White House officials said they believed Trump would assert the executive's privilege of preventing the former White House lawyer from testifying at Capitol Hill.
Mueller did not accuse Trump of crime in his final report, claiming he could not accuse a sitting president and had instead chosen to present the evidence he had collected. The special advocate wrote that in several cases, the president had sought to obstruct the investigation, particularly as part of his interactions with McGahn.
In June 2017, McGahn told investigators that Trump had called him twice at home, urging him to call Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and urging him to fire Mueller because of conflict d & # 39; interests. McGahn prepared to step down at some point rather than following Trump's instructions.
In February 2018, Trump pressured McGahn to deny a report that the president had lobbied him to help oust Mueller. Trump stated that he had never uttered the word "fire", which McGahn had acknowledged to be true, but he stated that he firmly believed that the President's intentions and actions indicated that he wanted Mueller removed.
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