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White House lawyer, Donald McGahn, inside the Oval Office on February 16, 2018. (Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post)
Carol D. Leonnig
A national investigative journalist focused on the White House and the government's responsibility
The notes, written quickly on a legal tablet, captivated fear in the White House when President Trump was unleashed against the investigation of Russia and decreed that he fired the FBI director who l? had directed: "Is this the beginning of the end?"
The entry filled with anxiety is part of a summary journal describing the chaotic days in Trump's West Wing, a proof that the special advocate's report cited more 65 times in the context of the evidence that the President had attempted to squander a criminal investigation him.
The public release of the notes – which document the stories of Donald McGahn's actions, a White House lawyer at the time – and his fears that the president's behavior was legal risky – provoked Trump's anger.
"Beware of people who take so-called" notes ", while these notes never existed, tweeted Trump a day after the publication of the report of the special advocate Robert S. Mueller III.
Annie Donaldson, McGahn's chief of staff, a loyal and discreet Conservative jurist, featured in the Mueller report as one of the most important narrators of the White House's internal turmoil.
His daily practice of documenting conversations and meetings provided the Special Council Office with his version of the Nixon White House tapes: a recurring narrative of the President's actions, although they are fragmentary sentences and concise descriptions.
Among the episodes commemorated in Donaldson's memos and memos: the indignation of the president when FBI director James B. Comey confirmed the existence of an investigation into possible links between the campaign Russia and Trump, Trump's efforts to put pressure on Attorney General Jeff Sessions so that he does not recuse the probe and his pressure to get Mueller disqualified and withdrawn as a special counsel.
The young graduate of Harvard Law School said: "In the midst of another Russian fiasco," she wrote on March 2, 2017, told the indefatigable Republican an unknown role: as a revealer of the truth announced by Trump's enemy for providing what they see as proof that he is not fit to hold a position.
The chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the House, Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Has already announced his intention to assign Donald Donaldson as a critical witness.
[Barr puts Trump’s actions in best light, despite ‘substantial evidence’ of obstruction cited by Mueller]
Donaldson, who lives in Montgomery, Alabama, where her husband recently obtained a federal prosecutor's office, did not respond to requests for comment. She left the White House in December, both proud of her service and somewhat stung by her experience in Washington, said friends.
Donaldson's relatives fear that she is plunged into the construction war between congressional Democrats at the White House. Some fear privately that she will not become the target of the president despite her efforts to help her implement her program.
"My only concern for her now is not to be too trapped in this Washington meat grinder, while she has really acted appropriately and cooperated as she was asked," said L & # 39; 39; former Republican Senator Luther Strange, who hired Donaldson to work in his law firm. in Alabama.
Document concerns about obstruction
McGahn speaks with Chief of Staff Reince Priebus shortly after the inauguration of President Trump. (J. Scott Applewhite / AP)
As McGahn's chief of staff, Donaldson was responsible for managing between 30 and 40 lawyers. in the board office, he legally verifies White House policies, maintains nominations for the Judiciary and works with McGahn on Trump's key priorities.
Along the way, she did what virtually every lawyer sees as a necessity: recording decisions, disputes, and remaining tasks. Almost every day, when McGahn came out of the oval office or other meetings, she was taking notes as he remembered important discussions with the president and his team, according to people who knew his role well. .
In the case of Nixon, the discovery of his registration system at the White House provided indisputable evidence of his role in concealing illegal espionage from his campaign, precipitating his resignation in 1974.
In the case of Trump, Donaldson's notes describe McGahn and others fearing that the president would be charged with criminal obstruction and seeking to protect him from his impulses.
[[[[How the notes of a White House aide have become a road map for Mueller]
In an entry on March 21, 2017, Donaldson recounts how Trump told McGahn that he was furious with Comey's testimony before Congress regarding the investigation of Russia the day before, hinting that he could return it on the spot. The President felt betrayed that Comey had not acted as Trump had asked: to tell the public that he was not personally under investigation.
"Outside of himself," she wrote of the president. "Becomes more and more hot, get rid?"
Former FBI Director James B. Comey appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8, 2017. (Matt McClain / The Washington Post)
McGahn was so worried that the dismissal of Comey was imminent that the board office had written a note analyzing the president's legal authority to do so, according to the report.
McGahn's lawyer, William Burck, declined to comment.
That day, Trump repeatedly pressured McGahn to bring in the Department of Justice, Donaldson told investigators. McGahn then called Assistant Attorney General Dana Boente to ask if officials could "correct the mistaken perception that the President was under investigation," the report said.
At one point, McGahn warned the president that some of his actions, such as asking Comey to abandon his investigation on Flynn, could make him vulnerable to charges of obstructing justice. "Greater exposure. . . other contacts. . . calls. . . ask re: Flynn, "Donaldson wrote that day.
White House assistants who know Donaldson have expressed confidence that his notes are a faithful account of the events at Trump's White House.
For his part, Donaldson is appalled by the fact that his confidential work product – documenting sensitive conversations with the President who would normally be immune from the executive secret – is available to all, said one of his colleagues .
"I doubt that she has any idea that these notes end up in anyone's hands, let alone Mueller," said a former White House official, who requested anonymity for describe the internal dynamics.
The White House advisers expect their confidential advice to the President to remain confidential, probably for decades, until it is returned to the historical archives.
Bob Bauer, President Obama's legal advisor to the White House, said Donald Donaldson's notes immediately emphasize the unprecedented nature of Trump's presidency.
"It is impossible to imagine that these detailed notes were taken for any reason other than to document a suspicious conduct of the presidency and the response of the council office," said Bauer. "That says a lot about the extraordinary challenges faced by White House lawyers, and raises the question: if that's what is needed for lawyers to do their job, then how is this a work that lawyers should agree to do? "
According to his friends and colleagues, McGahn trusted Donaldson, who worked as his partner at Jones Day, to make difficult calls without him and to lead a team of deputy ministers with their own impressive legal pedigrees.
According to a colleague, he had already compared their working relationship to that of a football coach and a defensive coordinator. They had gone through all the movies and played together for so long that Donaldson knew his mind.
"The glue that held all this together"
While McGahn was drinking in a pipe of meetings, debates about deregulation and legal disputes, Donaldson was known for his meticulous follow-up of small details.
She met McGahn every morning with a to-do list that she wanted him to address, and she gave similar lists to attorney lawyers and associate lawyers.
White House aides praised his ability to obtain the often thorny White House factions to meet his demands. She sought to ensure that McGahn was attending meetings at which some Trump counselors tried to avoid the lawyer's interventions. She displayed a quiet confidence, often speaking towards the end of a meeting rather than the first, and expressed her remarks slowly and accurately.
"She has a real desire to get things done," said her friend and former director, Katie Biber, who worked with Donaldson on Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential campaign. "She's not trying to get it right." to obtain credit. "
"Don may have been the White House lawyer, but Annie is the glue that held everything together," she added.
There was one major exception to his understated ways: Donaldson's red Corvette, an older model formerly wearing the "RLL TIDE" make-up plate in honor of his alma mater, the University of Alabama.
She parked the Corvette on West Executive Drive; the other senior White House staffers noticed this on their arrival at work and on their return home, as she often arrived at the White House at 7 pm and stayed there until 9 pm.
"The entire west wing knew that it was his car. It was always there, "said a former head of the administration. "You arrived on a Saturday and saw it:" Oh yes, Annie is already here. "
Donaldson had the legal skills to pursue a court warrant at the Supreme Court, but she was in love with politics, friends said. She joined Romney's presidential campaign in 2007, and when he lost the Republican primary to John McCain, she appealed to Harvard law.
At Harvard she was Harvard Law Review Editor-in-Chief and Editor-in-Chief of her conservative sister publication, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, a bastion of the Federalist Society.
After graduating, she obtained a law associate position with Patton Boggs, where she met McGahn. She worked for Romney's second presidential candidacy as a campaign lawyer in 2012, and then followed McGahn to work for him at Jones Day. There, she joined him as legal advisor for the Trump campaign.
At the White House, Donaldson played a significant role in helping to advance Trump's judicial appointments. a record 30 served on a federal appeals court in its first two years, double the amount of any previous jurisdiction.
"Annie is going into history as a true unsung hero of the judicial appointment process," said Biber.
But one bid painfully sang Donaldson and her husband Brett Talley. Trump nominated Talley for a federal court in Alabama, but he was one of the few candidates nominated by the American Bar Association as "unskilled."
Brett Talley, married to Annie Donaldson, was considered for a seat in a federal court in Alabama, but was deemed "unqualified" by the American Bar Association. (Matt McClain / The Washington Post)
Talley, who was a member of the Department of Justice's Bureau of Legal Policy, had never brought the case to court. He withdrew his candidacy while he had failed to reveal that he was married to a White House lawyer on public forms, asking if a family member could create a potential conflict. Donaldson was recused of his appointment.
After only eight months of work, Donaldson would learn that his grades were going to be handed over to federal investigators.
Trump reacted angrily when he learned in a February 2018 press article that McGahn kept a written record of their meetings, according to Mueller's report.
"What about these notes? Why are you taking notes? Trump asked McGahn during a tense confrontation at the Oval Office. "Lawyers do not take notes. I never had a lawyer take notes. (McGahn told the investigators that Trump was referring to Donaldson's notes, which the president considered McGahn's.)
McGahn told the president that he was keeping notes because he was a "real advocate" and that he explained that the notes create a record and are not a bad thing, according to the report.
Trump replied, "I've had a lot of excellent lawyers, like Roy Cohn. He did not take notes.
In the end, the president's desire to close the investigation eventually led to the disclosure of the precise description of events by Donaldson. In order to speed up Mueller's examination, Ty Cobb, then a White House lawyer, adopted a strategy of handing over all the administration's files to Mueller.
McGahn privately warned that this approach would require disclosure of very sensitive and privileged communications, and increase their chances of becoming public. His prediction has proven true.
Rachael Bade and Alice Crites contributed to this report.
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