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Trump is described in the report as fully consumed by the probe, which he says would be the "end of my presidency". An badistant said that the issue of Russian interference was his "Achilles' heel". The resulting atmosphere was marked by conflict and ruled by deception.
The portraits of the Trump administration as a disorderly collection of War Advisors, overseen by a rash leader, have been commonplace in the past two years. Staff members in distress confirmed these accounts.
But Mueller's report provides a cinematic vision of this disorder, told through appointed interviews delivered under criminal penalties of lying to the FBI. Trump is portrayed as a talker and obsessed with loyalty, surrounded by aides who shunned his orders, mocked the "madman" he demanded, and constantly wavered resignation letters.
Trump, meanwhile, shows that he repeatedly threatens the jobs of those he has deemed uncompromising, which has fostered a culture of paranoia in the White House that has led many badistants to adopt the practice of taking contemporary notes to better remember encounters later.
Not all advisors are described as playing a central role in preventing the president from short-circuiting the probe, and some seemed more willing than others to follow his orders. But a clear image emerges from a small circle of people anxious to protect Trump, both from Mueller and himself, and very attentive to his crazy impulses.
"The president's efforts to influence the investigation have mostly failed, but it's mainly because the people around him refused to execute orders or to access them. to his demands, "Mueller writes in his report.
And personalities such as Vice President Mike Pence and First Lady Melania Trump are barely mentioned.
The report paints a vivid picture of aides ignorant or repeatedly dismissing Trump's dictatorship – both in the interest of protecting the president from his worst instincts and protecting himself from any other legal implications.
At the same time, he describes collaborators as misleading the public (and sometimes each other) about his actions and his state of mind about some key developments. And this characterizes deep hostility and tension between the president and his senior officials, some of whom told Mueller that they were themselves shocked by some developments related to the investigation.
Who is the boss?
According to White House officials, this dynamic has been a constant trend for the Trump presidency, including on policy issues, including immigration and trade. The aides have always worked privately to prevent or prevent Trump from taking actions deemed imprudent or worse, relying either on diversionary tactics or on the belief that Trump would eventually forget his orders.
Trump has long hated the impression that he was led by badistants, and on Thursday, after this truth was inextricably engraved in the report of the special council, he always insisted that it was he who had decided to do not fire Mueller.
Nevertheless, the report reinforces the impression that Trump's badistants are working around him and teeming with examples of presidential attachés repressing Trump's orders. or work around it to avoid unsavory results.
"Porter did not contact him because he was not comfortable with this task," the report says.
In an episode of 2017, the then chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and his senior advisor, Steve Bannon, attempted to retrieve a letter of resignation. The sessions given to Trump were ultimately rejected, saying the missive held by the president amounted to a "shock collar". The two men spent time on Trump's first trip abroad to the Middle East in an attempt to locate the letter Trump had originally shown on Air Force One, but then returned to the White House.
Somewhere else, Trump and McGahn, who then served as White House lawyers, quarreled over whether Mueller should be removed, which led Trump to call McGahn a "liar bastard" and compare him unfavorably to his former colleague. lawyer, Roy Cohn, known for his scorched earth tactics.
"Why do you take notes?" The lawyers do not take notes, "I never had a lawyer taking notes," Trump said as he learned that McGahn had written his memoir notes. a previous meeting. "I've had a lot of excellent lawyers, like Roy Cohn, who did not take notes."
McGahn refused Trump's request to deny the media reports about the dismissal, and then refused to write an official letter "for our records" that would deny the stories. "If he does not write a letter, I may have to get rid of him," Trump said, according to Porter. McGahn stayed at his post for months.
Lewandowski and White House aide Rick Dearborn each refused to convey a message from the president to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in which he said he should narrow the scope from the inquiry of the special advocate. Lewandowski, who dictated the president's message, first told Trump that he would take care of the case himself, and took steps to organize a meeting with sessions that would avoid any public record.
But later, he sent the note to Dearborn, who, in his opinion, would be a better messenger, without revealing that the president had dictated the message himself. Reading the message, Dearborn said that he was "definitely raising an eyebrow". He never forwarded the note, but told Lewandowski that he had "managed the situation," according to Mueller.
Not "based on anything"
Dishonest interactions like this color Mueller's report, contributing to the impression that Trump and his badociates are of little importance in telling the truth to each other or to the public.
Mueller also explained in detail how Trump and his badociates managed the spin-off from the June 9, 2016 meeting at the Trump Tower between Russians and senior campaigners. The report, citing an interview with Hicks, says Trump has repeatedly called on employees not to publicly disclose e-mails preparing for the meeting. Later, the report states that Trump himself dictated a misleading statement to the press that the meeting was about adoption.
Hicks recalls being "shocked" by the emails that had organized the meeting, fearing that they would appear "really bad". Together with senior advisers Ivanka Trump and Kushner, Hicks discussed emails with President Trump, who told the group "that he did not want to know more" and refused to hear the details of the news. # 39; s case. He said that he was confident that e-mails would never run away.
Ivanka Trump and Kushner are described as key advisers consulted by Hicks about e-mails and having already participated in a campaign teleconference preceding the Trump Tower meeting during which Donald Trump Jr. announced that he was directing " negative information regarding the Clinton Foundation ". . "
Kushner, for his part, participated in efforts to improve US-Russian relations during the presidential transition, including meeting the Russian ambbadador. When Kushner suggested that the transition could use the Russian Embbady to communicate safely with Russian officials, the ambbadador "quickly rejected this idea".
The report sheds new light on Trump's relationship with Hicks, who has long been his closest confidant to the White House. She describes intuitively knowing the preferences of the president, finding it strange his initial reluctance to respond to media reports about the Trump Tower meeting "because he generally felt that not responding to the press was the ultimate sin."
Later, in a text message addressed to Donald Trump Jr., she describes the president as a "jack of all trades" while she voiced concerns about the need to provide too much information in A press release.
Others at the White House are described as less explained. Reince Priebus, then chief of staff, is described as the first to have learned about the existence of the Trump Tower meeting organized by Sean Hannity, host of Fox News, end of June 2017 (the report does not say how Hannity l & rsquo; Learned.)).
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