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When President Trump ordered the White House press secretary, Sarah Sanders, "not to bother" with press briefings earlier this year, he argued that it would not be a good thing to say that he was not going to be in trouble. was because reporters had it covered "Grossly and inaccurately."
But the report of special advocate Robert S. Mueller III reveals the pressure that Sanders and other Trump's relatives are facing: he seems to invent explanations for the dubious actions he's been undertaking these two last years. On several occasions, Mueller's 448-page report portrays a portrait of an unreliable White House – a house that has often struggled to create its own inaccurate narrative.
Trump's reaction to Mueller's nomination:
One of these examples appeared in May 2017, when then Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Trump that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein had just appointed Mueller as counsel. special.
According to Mueller's report – which quotes notes from Jody Hunt, Sessions – Trump's chief of staff reacted by sinking into his chair and shouting, "Oh my God, it's terrible. It is the end of my presidency. I'm screwed. Trump then went into the sittings for disqualification, indicating that the sessions had let him down.
"Everyone tells me that if you get one of these independent boards, it ruins your presidency," Trump said, according to Hunt's notes. "It takes years and years and I can not do anything. It's the worst thing that has happened to me. The next morning, Trump tweeted, "It's the biggest witch hunt of a politician in American history!
But like Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post tweeted Thursday, a report of the meeting of the White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, painted a different picture:
In the Mueller report, Trump says "it's the end of my presidency" and "I'm screwed up" when I learned that Mueller had been named. On that day, White House spokesman Sean Spicer and others said the president was calm and gathered on the issue and was looking forward to the trial.
– Josh Dawsey (@ jdawsey1) April 18, 2019
Dawsey's story at the time quotes two people in the room with Trump when he learned that Mueller had been named. They said the president had a calm and balanced response to the news, with one person saying his attitude was "extremely measured".
[[[[Read the complete and redacted report of Mueller]
Trump's attempt to fire the special council:
On January 25, 2018, the New York Times announced that in June 2017, Trump had told White House lawyer Donald McGahn that he wanted to sack Mueller, saying that 39, special advocate had several conflicts of interest. However, Trump finally yielded to this request when McGahn threatened to resign, according to the Times.
On January 26, 2018, Trump called the report "false news. . . . A false story typical of the New York Times, "the Times reported.
But the same day, according to the Mueller report, Trump's personal attorney addressed McGahn's lawyer, asking him to "publish a statement denying that he had been asked to dismiss the special advocate and threatened to leave him in protest "- a McGahn order defied.
"McGahn's lawyer informed the president's personal council that the Times story was accurate," reads the Mueller report. "As a result, McGahn's attorney stated that, even though the article was inaccurate in other respects, McGahn could not bow to the president's request to challenge the story. . "
The termination of Trump by James B. Comey:
The official position of the White House on why Trump fired James B. Comey, then director of the FBI, in 2017 changed several times during the press cycle. On the day the news was announced, the White House said in a statement that Comey had been removed from office on the "recommendations of Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions".
According to Mueller's report, however, "the president decided to dismiss Comey before he heard the Justice Ministry."
In addition, Sanders said at a press conference at the time that the "FBI base had lost trust in its director" – drawing skepticism from a journalist who claimed otherwise: the "vast majority" of FBI agents actually supported Comey. .
[The Mueller report nails Sarah Sanders on an extravagant fabrication]
"Look, we've heard countless FBI members say very different things," Sanders replied, according to Mueller's report.
But, as the report later explains, his claims were completely unfounded.
Sanders told the Office that his reference to "countless FBI members" was a "slip of the tongue," "the report says. She also recalled that her statement in a press interview that basic FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she had made "in the heat of the moment" and that did not rest on anything. "
Trump's trade relations with Russia:
Mueller's report also mentions a press conference in July 2016 during which Trump answered questions about his possible relations with Moscow by "refusing any commercial involvement in Russia" – "while the Trump organization had continued a commercial project in Russia until June 2016. "
"At the press conference, Trump repeated," I have nothing to do with Russia "five times, he said that" the closest [he] came to Russia "was that the Russians may have bought a house or condos from him.He said that after having organized the Miss Universe contest in Moscow in 2013, he was interested in working with Russian companies that "wanted to invest a lot of money in developments in Russia", but "it never worked".
The Mueller Report
But Trump's statement at the 2016 event that he had "nothing to do with Russia" is directly challenged in his written answers to the special council's questions. In an answer, he admitted to signing a non-binding letter of intent for an agreement in 2015.
"If I remember correctly, neither the Trump organization nor myself had any plans or projects proposed in Russia during the campaign other than the letter of intent," Trump wrote. .
The report adds: "However, the Trump organization was pursuing a Moscow construction project – the Trump Tower project in Moscow from around September 2015 to June 2016, and the candidate was regularly informed of developments, including Michael Cohen's possible trips to Moscow. to promote the agreement and by Trump himself to finalize it. "
The role of Carter Page in the campaign
The special council report highlights Carter Page, a Trump campaign foreign policy advisor.
In 2016, according to the special advocate, a spokesman for the Trump campaign told Yahoo! News that Carter Page had "no role" in the campaign after his trip to Moscow this summer and his meeting with Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambbadador to the United States. This trip attracted media attention and prompted the campaign to qualify Page as an "informal foreign policy advisor" who "did not speak for Mr. Trump or for the campaign".
According to the report, he was officially removed from the campaign on September 24, 2016, but in an email the next day, Hope Hicks, director of communications for the Trump campaign, asked Kellyanne Conway and Stephen K. Bannon to answer questions about Page. with the following: "[H]he was announced as an informal advisor in March. Since then, he has had no role or official contact with the campaign. We have no knowledge of past or present activities and it is now officially removed from all lists, etc. "
But in the months following March, according to the report, Page "continued to provide a policy-related work product to the campaign leaders."
"For example, in April 2016, Page has commented on the broad outlines of a foreign policy speech made by the candidate at the Mayflower Hotel. In May 2016, Page was outlining an energy policy speech for the campaign, and then went to Bismarck, North Dakota, to watch the candidate deliver his speech, "reads the report. . "Sam Clovis, Senior Policy Advisor, expressed his gratitude for Page's work and congratulated his work on the other campaign leaders."
Brent Griffiths contributed to this report.
Read more:
Live Updates: Mueller rejects the argument that Trump is protected from the laws on obstruction
Mueller's report exposes evidence of obstruction against the president
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