President Trump is disputing former White House counsel Don McGahn’s account in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report into whether the president obstructed justice during the course of the probe into Russian election interference.
McGahn testified to Mueller that Trump instructed him multiple times to have the acting attorney general remove the special counsel because of perceived conflicts of interest.
{mosads}”The story on that very simply, No. 1, I was never going to fire Mueller. I never suggested firing Mueller,” Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in a snippet of an interview released Friday.
Stephanopoulos pushed back, referencing McGahn’s testimony.
“I don’t care what [McGahn] says, it doesn’t matter,” Trump responded.
Last month, McGahn announced he would follow the White House’s urging and defy a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee to testify publicly about that conversation with Trump.
Later in the interview, Stephanopoulos asked Trump why McGahn would lie under oath.
“Because he wanted to make himself look like a good lawyer,” Trump responded. “Or he believed it because I would constantly tell anybody that would listen, including you, including the media, that Robert Mueller was conflicted. Robert Mueller had a total conflict of interest.”
“And has to go?” Stephanopoulos followed up.
“I didn’t say that,” Trump said.
Mueller found that he could not establish a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. He did not make a determination on obstruction of justice instead leaving it up to Congress to further investigate the matter while citing 10 instances of potential obstruction.
The attorney general and deputy attorney general determined there was not sufficient evidence to charge Trump with obstruction.