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Now his family says that Trump is recently furious with people – most of whom are no longer working for him – whose lengthy interviews with the special council office created the epic representation of an unscrupulous and chaotic White House. And he is seeking assurances from those who remain that his orders are treated as those of a president and not as suggestions from an excessive but misguided supervisor.
"As I have never agreed to testify, it was not necessary for me to respond to the statements made in the" Report "about me, some of which are bullshit and are given only to look good. to the other person (or me too.) Trump tweeted Friday morning while waiting for a rainstorm in Florida before heading to his golf course for a party with conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh .
Some current and former officials who had accurately predicted that the details of the Mueller report would be embarrassing for the White House are calling into question the legal strategy of fully cooperating with the Mueller investigation.
John Dowd and Ty Cobb, one of the White House jurists, who provided a wealth of documents and encouraged senior officials to go for an interview. It was through these interviews with people close to the president that Mueller and his team were able to get a cinematic overview of the deception and deception taking place in the west wing.
Although these people were essential, total cooperation was a strategy that prevented Mueller from lobbying for an interview given all the information that had been provided. It was a strategy that worked, even though there was some political embarrassment.
Raise anger
But Trump was angry when he watched the news coverage by cable because according to sources close to the subject, a theme moved him: the portrait of a dishonest president who is regularly managed, withheld or ignored by his staff.
This is a radical departure from his earlier statements, which welcomed the conclusions of the report on collusion and claimed to be totally exonerated. A few hours before his Mar-a-Lago dinner, Trump insisted in front of a crowd on the tarmac in Florida after the dark day of the investigation led by Mueller's special council.
"The party is over, guys," he told the sound of a busy airport. "Now it's back to work."
It's hard to say, however, what Trump intends to return to. Mueller's probe and Trump's constant focus on it have been the backdrop of the presidency, just months away from the presidency, often undermining political efforts orchestrated by Republican authorities or lawmakers. The report portrays a president who, for two years, was largely absorbed by the Russian investigation, with the intention of bypassing it, but whose efforts were thwarted by his collaborators.
A senior administration official told CNN's Jake Tapper that this dynamic was "not surprising".
"The fact that the president makes absurd demands to his staff and to those in charge of the administration – who are alarmed and reluctant to follow them – is not only surprising, but has become the norm," he said. said this manager.
Nevertheless, in the past, Trump has resisted the idea that it is controlled by those who surround it or that they are responsible for its success. Sources close to the operation of the West Wing said that attempts to subvert the president's demands had not stopped since the closure of the Mueller investigation. There have been cases in recent weeks where assistants walked slowly or ignored Trump's guidelines, hoping that he will forget that he gave them away.
What is clear is that many of those who have avoided responding to Trump's requests related to Mueller's investigation – often, it seems, in order to protect themselves from criminal are more employed by the White House. Instead, the assistants who now surround the president seem less willing to strike him off and more likely to encourage him to follow his instinct.
Among those who left: the White House lawyer who refused Trump's request to fire Mueller, the chief of staff and senior advisor who tried with anguish to retrieve a letter of resignation from the Attorney General, the secretary staff who refused Trump's order to evaluate his loyalty to a Justice Department official, the Attorney General who refused to recuse himself and the communications officer who seemed the most expert Trump's quirks.
Even Steve Bannon, once considered the ultimate defender of following Trump's instincts, is described in the report as a compelling force. In one case, when the president tried to pretend that Mueller was in conflict of interest because of a membership dispute in a Trump golf club, Bannon called him " ridiculous and petty ". Trump and Bannon separated in the summer of 2017 and have not reconciled since.
"(Trump) never asked me to break the law," she told CBS. "When the president wants to do something and make a decision, he does it.This is not someone who sits down to think, I think you've seen it day after day. tell stories that the staff can not control it and everyone says it, thank goodness the staff could control it – you can not do it both ways. "
More and more not attached
Among those with whom Trump dined on Thursday in Florida was Mick Mulvaney, the chief of staff who still holds the position on an acting basis, but who, according to officials, has done less than one of his two predecessors to restrain Trump in his hard instinct. .
Indeed, since the beginning of Mulvaney's term at the beginning of the year, Trump has overseen the government's longest closing in US history, a radical transformation of the Department of Homeland Security, a sharp turnaround to tougher border policy, a decision to seize a court. to remove the entire Affordable Care Act and a confusing saying about sanctions in North Korea that still has one-on-one counselors.
People familiar with Mulvaney's style claim that these results are not necessarily his own, but rather the fact that a president has just been given the power to follow his impulses without the restrictions imposed by his former collaborators. Sources say that the president also relies less on his chief of staff than under the reign of Reince Priebus or John Kelly, while he often called his main associate nearly a dozen times a day. Mulvaney told his colleagues that there are days that he hardly hears from the president.
In his report, Mueller describes Mulvaney's two predecessors – Priebus and Kelly – as working at least to some extent to contain the damage caused by Trump's behavior. Priebus is shown making an urgent (and vaguely comical) effort to retrieve a letter of resignation from Jeff Sessions, Attorney General of the time, kept by Trump, saying it would constitute a "shock collar" for the Department of Justice because it was not dated, afraid that Trump could use it at his ease.
Kelly told Mueller that when Trump wanted to meet friends who were encouraging him, such as former campaign aide Corey Lewandowski, he was trying to push them into a private residence "to distance himself from the west wing".
Trump soured on Priebus and Kelly long before terminating their terms in a summary way. Similarly, Trump became suspicious of former White House lawyer Don McGahn, who had spent more than 30 hours of testimony with Mueller's team. Trump again became furious with his former help on Thursday and Friday.
In the report, Trump is described as having had several tense meetings with McGahn during his tenure at the White House, including episodes in which McGahn was ready to resign rather than following up on his requests.
McGahn described Trump asking him to "go crazy," according to Priebus. Trump, on the other hand, regarded McGahn as a "liar bastard" whose habit of taking contemporary notes raised suspicions. In an anecdote reported in the report, Trump and McGahn discussed taking notes. Trump insisted that good lawyers, such as his former lawyer, Roy Cohn, had never done it.
Trump did not shrink from this view on Friday morning, when he had clearly indicated on Twitter his frustrations with the report.
"Beware of people who take so-called" notes ", while these notes never existed until they were needed," wrote the president.
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