Well, not quite, but close. And what a joke! But not really.
Today, The New York Times reported that last June, President Donald Trump ordered chief White House lawyer Don McGahn to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. The Times says they have four sources for this story, all of whom are present staff members at the White House. The Washington Post soon afterwards affirmed this story.
Here’s what had happened. Only one month earlier, in May, 2017, the Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had hired Robert Mueller to continue the FBI investigation overseen by the Department of Justice concerning possible Russian interference in our presidential election last year. Mueller had a stellar reputation with Congress as the previous director of the FBI for ten years. He was replacing James Comey as head of this investigation and chief of the FBI whom President Trump had fired in March, 2017. Trump admitted publicly that he fired Comey to try to stop that investigation. If so, that is probably an obstruction of justice, thus a federal crime. It is also being reported that President Trump had just learned previously that Robert Mueller’s investigation had now included President Trump possibly obstructing justice.
This story has legs. But it’s not new. One of Donald Trump’s close friends was in the White House in June, 2017, and there learned that President Trump had indeed ordered Don McGahn to get Mueller fired. And this guy was interviewed on national TV claiming this. But apparently this guy’s story didn’t have any other support of witnesses for the television networks to risk telling it.
When President Trump ordered Don McGahn to tell the Department of Justice to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, who had only been on the job for about a month, McGahn refused to do so and told the president that if he fired Mueller himself, which the president has the right to do, McGahn said he would quit as the chief White House lawyer. McGahn then warned the president that if he himself had Mueller fired, it would seriously threaten his presidency. That, folks, is a no-brainer! These sources also say McGahn then told some White House staff members about this and predicted that President Trump did not have the nerve to go ahead and fire Mueller himself. Indeed, the president CHOKED and never fired Mueller!
Why is it a no-brainer? History. Saturday Night Massacre. In the evening of October 20, 1973, President Richard Nixon, who was under investigation for trying to cover-up the Watergate burglary of the Democratic headquarters in Washington D.C., fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Both Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus then immediately resigned in protest. All of this happened in one night, on a Saturday, and that is why it became known as the Saturday Night Massacre. That along with damning revelations on White House tape recordings led to the Congress beginning impeachment proceedings of the president, and then he resigned in great shame for having lied to the American public about his cover-up of the Watergate break-in.
President Trump, his personal lawyers, and perhaps other advisors then reportedly put together three reasons to offer publicly if the president went ahead and fired Mueller. One of those reasons was that Robert Mueller, a golfer, had been a member of Trump National Golf Club Washington, D.C. There came a time when Donald Trump had the membership fees raised substantially at this club. Some members objected and quit. Robert Mueller was one of them. President Trump reportedly would give this as a reason if he fired Mueller as special counsel, saying it was a conflict of interest. This is the joke! What a phony-baloney reason to fire the special counsel!
Every week, there is more stuff coming out about this FBI investigation of Russian meddling, possible collusion of President Trump and/or his campaign, and now possible obstruction of justice by not only the president but others who worked for him. Several of the latter have agreed to be truthful to Mueller’s team in their questioning of these people. Some have already been charged with law-breaking.
Donald Trump obviously is worried. Why would he fire Comey and then try to fire Mueller? It has to be because he is hiding something from the American public that he desperately does not want it to know about. Otherwise, as a patriotic American, he would support this FBI investigation in order to try to prevent any further Russian meddling in our elections. Trump has been taking serious risks in so criticizing this investigation, the FBI itself, and the media that reports about it, constantly calling the latter FAKE NEWS! His constant allegations that Mueller’s investigation is “a witch hunt” and “a hoax” are efforts to turn Americans against this investigation so that he hopes Congress will apply pressure to end it. IMO, and that of a whole lot of experts, these activities by President Trump represent a serious threat to our democracy.
On May 10, 2017, I predicted in a post that President Trump would be out of office in a year. About a week later I said, “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it will be two years!”
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