michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today: The most interesting person in the Mueller report is the man who was hired to protect the president — and turned out to be the most damning witness against him. Mike Schmidt on Donald McGahn. It’s Monday, April 22. Mike, I imagine you spent your weekend continuing to read the Mueller report. Does that pretty much sum up the weekend for you?

michael schmidt

Yes, fair.

michael barbaro

And what were you most interested in upon further examination of it?

michael schmidt

The president’s relationship with his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II. Statements provided to investigators by McGahn are cited 157 times in the report — more than any of the other 500 witnesses Mueller talked to. We always knew that McGahn and his cooperation with Mueller were going to be a central part of the investigation, but what we see in these details is McGahn is the narrator for Mueller. He is being used to tell the story — Mueller’s way of getting inside the White House and finding out what was really going on as he investigated whether the president was obstructing justice.

michael barbaro

What’s interesting about that, Mike, is that when I think about Don McGahn, I think of him as this loyalist to Trump — the figure who, more than anyone, is responsible for pushing through conservative judges, conservative Supreme Court justices, shaping the president’s judicial legacy, being a Trump guy.

michael schmidt

It’s much more complex than that. Yes, McGahn was a loyalist to the president. He was the architect of, perhaps, his greatest political achievements. He really quarterbacked the things that the president’s base love about Trump. But he also helped Mueller in a way that, as you can see here, was incredibly damaging to the president.

michael barbaro

So take us into the report. Where does McGahn make his first big appearance?

michael schmidt

McGahn is all over the obstruction section of the report. But the episodes that I think are most illustrative are about the president’s efforts in June of 2017 to have McGahn fire Mueller. “On Saturday, June 17, 2017, the president called McGahn and directed him to have the special counsel removed. ... In interviews with this office, McGahn recalled that the president called him at home twice, and, on both occasions, directed him to call” the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who was overseeing the Mueller investigation, “and say that Mueller had conflicts that precluded him from serving as special counsel. On the first call, McGahn recalled the president saying something like, ‘You gotta do this. You gotta call Rod.’ McGahn said he told the president that he would see what he could do. McGahn was perturbed by the call and did not intend to act on the request. ... When the president called McGahn a second time to follow up on the order to call the Department of Justice, McGahn recalled the president was more direct, saying something like ... ‘Mueller has to go,’ and ‘call me back when you do it.’ McGahn understood the president to be saying that the special counsel had to be removed by Rosenstein. ... McGahn decided he had to resign. He called his personal lawyer and then called his chief of staff, Annie Donaldson, to inform her of his decision. He then drove to the office to pack up his belongings and submit his resignation letter. ... Donaldson prepared to resign along with McGahn. That evening, McGahn called both” the White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, and the president’s top aide, Steve Bannon, “and told them that he intended to resign. ... Priebus recalled that McGahn said the president had asked him to,” quote, ”‘do crazy shit,’ but he thought McGahn ... was trying to protect Priebus from what he did not need to know. Priebus and Bannon both urged McGahn not to quit, and McGahn ultimately returned to work that Monday and remained in his position. He had not told the president directly that he planned to resign, and when they next saw each other, the president did not ask McGahn whether he had followed through with calling Rosenstein.”

michael barbaro

So, Mike, that’s pretty shocking, but we basically knew most of that story, right? Because several months after the incident took place, you had reported it.

michael schmidt

In January of 2018, Maggie Haberman and I broke that story.

archived recording Hi, everyone, it’s 4 o’clock in New York. A blockbuster account in The New York Times today makes public for the very first time that White House counsel Don McGahn is serving as an often invisible but highly effective human guardrail to Donald Trump and his presidency.

michael schmidt

For me, the most excruciating and interesting part of the report is about what Trump did after we broke the story. In order to understand the events, you have to know what happened between the June 2017 firing attempt and January. Because McGahn didn’t fire Mueller, McGahn had fallen out of favor with the president. And later in the summer of 2017, a new team of lawyers, who the president is relying on to make the decisions about whether to cooperate with the Mueller investigation, sell the president on a strategy of allowing Mueller to interview whomever he wants in the White House. McGahn did not want that to happen.

michael barbaro

And why not?

michael schmidt

Because McGahn had studied previous investigations into administrations, and he knew that simply handing over White House officials to serve as witnesses to investigators who were under immense pressure from the public to go after the president could be very damaging to Trump. But Trump had been sold on this idea of cooperation by his new team of lawyers, who said that the sooner he cooperated, the more quickly they could bring an end to the investigation — maybe even by that fall.

michael barbaro

So, Trump signs onto this plan — the kind of cooperation with Mueller plan?

michael schmidt

Correct. And, as part of that, McGahn begins to go in and talk to Mueller’s team. And this highly unusual thing occurs, where Mueller’s team gets direct access to the president’s lawyer — the person the president was consulting with about whether to take different moves to try and curtail the investigation. What you see in the report is sort of unfiltered Donald Trump running his mouth to his lawyer — something we usually don’t see in an investigation, because lawyers are typically protected and not interviewed.

michael barbaro

It’s pretty ironic that the lawyer who discouraged the president from cooperating with Mueller becomes the most important cooperative voice in Mueller’s investigation.

michael schmidt

When McGahn and his lawyers sit down in the windowless conference room in Mueller’s office in the fall of 2017 for his first interview, he can’t understand why it is that the president is allowing him to go in. He’s very skeptical of this new team of lawyers, and he thinks that maybe what’s going on here is that they’re setting him up to take the fall. And he sits across from Mueller’s team and cooperates as fulsomely as he could.

michael barbaro

So McGahn fulsomely cooperates with the special counsel, and somehow, after he does that, you learn that he has done so and learn what he has told the special counsel about this request from the president back in June, and you report it.

archived recording Breaking news from President Trump — he’s in Davos, Switzerland this morning, denying a blockbuster report from The New York Times that last June the president ordered the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller before backing down in the face of resistance from his White House counsel.

michael schmidt

And then Trump begins an effort to try and get McGahn to recant what he said to Mueller’s team.

michael barbaro

And that’s what’s in this next section of the Mueller report.

michael schmidt

Correct. This is from the section entitled “The President Orders McGahn to Deny that the President Tried to Fire the Special Counsel.” “On January 25, 2018, The New York Times reported that in June of 2017, the president had ordered McGahn to have the Department of Justice fire the special counsel. ... After the article was published, the president dismissed this story when asked about it by reporters, saying, ‘Fake news, folks. Fake news. A typical New York Times fake story.’” The report goes on to say: “On January 26, 2018, the president’s personal counsel called McGahn’s attorney and said that the president wanted McGahn to put out a statement denying that he had been asked to fire the special counsel and that he had threatened to quit in protest. ... McGahn’s attorney informed the president’s personal counsel that the Times story was accurate in reporting that the president wanted the special counsel removed. ... Consistent with that position, McGahn did not correct the Times story. ... On February 5, 2018, the president complained about the Times article” to the White House staff secretary, Rob Porter. “The president told Porter that the article was ‘bullshit’ and he had not sought to terminate the special counsel. ... The president then directed Porter to tell McGahn to create a record to make clear that the president never directed McGahn to fire the special counsel. Porter thought the matter should be handled by the White House communications office, but the president said he wanted McGahn to write a letter to the file,” quote, ”‘for our records,’ and wanted something beyond a press statement to demonstrate that the reporting was inaccurate. The president referred to McGahn as a,” quote, ”‘lying bastard’ and said he wanted a record from him.”

michael barbaro

Mike, let me interrupt to make sure I have this right. Is what I’m hearing you say that the president asked McGahn to falsify documents?

michael schmidt

Essentially, yeah. He’s asking him to go back and create a document that would directly undermine what he told investigators. And then the president goes further: “The next day, on February 6, 2018,” White House chief of staff John Kelly “scheduled time for McGahn to meet with him and the president in the Oval Office to discuss the Times article. ... The president began the Oval Office meeting by telling McGahn that the New York Times story did not,” quote, ”‘look good’ and McGahn needed to correct it. McGahn recalled the president said, ‘I never said to fire Mueller. I never said, “fire.” ... You need to correct this. You’re the White House counsel.’”

michael barbaro

Hmm. Is this the president going further, as you said?

michael schmidt

Well, let’s hear the rest of the story.

michael barbaro

O.K.

michael schmidt

“McGahn told the president he did not understand the conversation that way, and instead had heard, ‘Call Rod. There are conflicts. Mueller has to go.’ The president asked McGahn whether he would,” quote, ”‘do a correction,’ and McGahn said no. McGahn thought the president was testing his mettle to see how committed McGahn was to what happened. Kelly described the meeting as,” quote, ”‘a little tense.’”

michael barbaro

I suspect it was a little tense.

michael schmidt

“The president also asked McGahn in the meeting why he had told the special counsel’s investigators that the president had told him to have the special counsel removed. McGahn responded that he had to and that the conversations with the president were not protected by attorney-client privilege. The president then asked, ‘What about those notes? Why do you take notes? Lawyers don’t take notes.’ ... McGahn responded that he keeps notes because he is a,” quote, ”‘real lawyer,’ and explained that notes create a record and are not a bad thing. The president said, ‘I’ve had a lot of great lawyers, like Roy Cohn. He did not take notes.’”

michael barbaro

Roy Cohn, the president’s longtime, now-deceased lawyer, who used to work for Joseph McCarthy and who was disbarred.

michael schmidt

And largely seen as one of the more unethical lawyers in American legal history. “After the Oval Office meeting concluded ... McGahn recalled that Kelly said that he had pointed out to the president that McGahn had not backed down and would not budge. Following the Oval Office meeting, the president’s personal counsel called McGahn’s counsel and relayed that the president was,” quote, ”‘fine’ with McGahn.”

michael barbaro

As in, the president has kind of given up on this.

michael schmidt

Yes. And it’s sort of a theme in the obstruction part, where, eventually, Trump either loses interest or sort of gives up on his efforts. And, in this case, he stopped pushing McGahn to a point in which he would have gotten himself into greater trouble.

michael barbaro

And what do you make of this scene, Mike? What are you thinking about when you’re reading all this about McGahn?

michael schmidt

Well, from where we sit today, it clearly illustrates the competing forces of McGahn. McGahn was the one that stopped the president from firing Mueller — and that would have devastated his presidency. And McGahn was that guardrail. And then you look at this, and you say, well, the only reason we know about this is because McGahn went in and cooperated and told investigators about this and gave them a roadmap for how the president tried to interfere with the investigation. So on one hand, he has protected the president, and on another, he has damaged him by disclosing that actual protection. The president’s lawyers had sold him on the idea of cooperating. That opened the door for McGahn to go in and talk to Mueller’s team. And what the president apparently didn’t understand is that when you are a witness and you go in, you have to tell them everything you know and be truthful about it. It’s as if he didn’t understand what cooperation meant.

michael barbaro

So the president’s looking at this report, seeing all these names in there — especially McGahn — and he’s feeling betrayed just to find their accounts existing in the report.

michael schmidt

Yes. And he’s saying, hold on. Back in the summer of 2017, when we first confronted the specter of the Mueller Investigation, I was sold on the idea that if we cooperated, we’d quickly bring an end to the investigation. Hold on — the investigation went on for two years, and now I’ve got a report filled with all of these damning accounts from the people closest to me, because we waved them into Mueller’s office? Like, what?

michael barbaro

But ultimately, isn’t the most important thing that McGahn prevented the president from committing the ultimate act of obstruction — firing the special counsel?

michael schmidt

Yes. But when that is disclosed, it hurts the president. And we wouldn’t have that disclosure if McGahn hadn’t told Mueller about it. What shows us how damaging it may be is that the president’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani seized on this right out of the gate after the report was released.

archived recording (rudy giuliani) I’m telling you, he’s confused. He gave three different versions. archived recording So, let me ask you a question. archived recording (rudy giuliani) When the special prosecutor comes to the conclusion he’s definitively telling the truth, his lawyer should tell us which of those three versions is true, and how does he know which one is true now when he couldn’t figure it out then? archived recording Here’s what we have.

michael schmidt

He began raising questions about McGahn’s recollection.

archived recording (rudy giuliani) It’s unfair to use that. archived recording McGahn thought that the president was telling him to fire special counsel Mueller. archived recording (rudy giuliani) He’s wrong. archived recording That is the bottom line.

michael barbaro

And why do that? Why are they going after McGahn if, ultimately, there is no charge of obstruction of justice? What’s the point?

michael schmidt

Because the president now faces a political problem from the report. Democrats are increasingly talking about impeachment.

archived recording (jerry nadler) If proven, some of this would be impeachable, yes. Obstruction of justice, if proven, would be impeachable. archived recording And you’re going to go about to see if you can prove it? archived recording (jerry nadler) Well, we’re going to see where the facts lead us. archived recording All right, Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Democrat from New York. Thanks for coming on and sharing your views, sir. archived recording (jerry nadler) Thank you.

michael schmidt

And if you look at the report, this may be one of the better episodes for the Democrats to use to build an argument against Trump.

archived recording (elizabeth warren) We have to stop, take a deep breath, and be willing to say, that’s wrong. And I’ll stand up and say so, and I hope a lot of other people will too.

michael schmidt

The president can see that. Any type of impeachment against Trump would rely heavily, like the report, on McGahn. And it’s notable that the first person that Giuliani attacks is McGahn. Because he’s so important, he becomes a target for the president.

michael barbaro

And Mike, how has McGahn responded to these attacks from the administration?

michael schmidt

On Friday night, McGahn’s lawyer, Bill Burck, put out a statement in response to Giuliani’s attacks. And what this statement is essentially saying is saying, why is it that you guys are attacking me? I didn’t think that cooperating in the first place was a good idea. I went in and did it anyway. In the course of that, Mueller learned that I protected the president from hurting himself time and time again. And ultimately, the Justice Department found that the president didn’t break the law. So why is it that you’re now coming after me and trying to call me a liar? And then McGahn ends his statement with a bit of a dig at a president who he knows is insecure when others get credit for his accomplishments. Don nonetheless appreciates that the president gave him the opportunity to serve as White House counsel and assist him with his signature accomplishments.

michael barbaro

So in this statement, Don McGahn is basically saying, everything you’re proud of having done as president, I did that. And by the way, you’re still president because of me. So leave me out of it.

michael schmidt

Knock it off. Go away. I did everything you asked me to do. I protected you from yourself. You haven’t been accused of breaking the law.

michael barbaro

Because of me.

michael schmidt

Because of me. Go away. Leave me alone.

michael barbaro

Mike, thank you very much.

michael schmidt

Thanks for having me.

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back.

[music]

michael barbaro

Here’s what else you need to know today. On Sunday, terrorists carried out a series of coordinated suicide bombings against churches and hotels in Sri Lanka, killing at least 200 people and injuring nearly 500 more. The timing on Easter and the targets, including three Catholic churches packed with worshippers, seemed designed to inflict maximum harm to Christians and drew a condemnation from Pope Francis.

archived recording (pope francis) [SPEAKING ITALIAN]

michael barbaro