Doing Trump's bidding

Justice Department officials have had numerous conversations with White House lawyers about the conclusions made by Mr. Mueller, the special counsel, in recent days, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. The talks have aided the president’s legal team as it prepares a rebuttal to the report and strategizes for the coming public war over its findings.

A sense of paranoia is taking hold among some of Mr. Trump’s aides, some of whom fear his backlash more than the findings themselves, the people said. The report might make clear which of Mr. Trump’s current and former advisers spoke to the special counsel, how much they said and how much damage they did to the president — providing a kind of road map for retaliation.

  NYT

And don't think he won't retaliate.

Thursday to discuss the special counsel’s report, refused to answer questions from lawmakers last week about whether the department had given the White House a preview of Mr. Mueller’s findings.

[...]

The discussions between Justice Department officials and White House lawyers have also added to questions about the propriety of the decisions by Attorney General William P. Barr since he received Mr. Mueller’s findings late last month.

[...]

[Democrats on Capitol Hill] have already demanded the full text of the report and access to the underlying evidence they say is necessary for continuing congressional inquiries into foreign influence and obstruction of justice.

The House Judiciary Committee has already authorized a subpoena for Mr. Nadler to try to force Mr. Barr to hand that material over to Congress. Democrats involved in the planning say the subpoena could be sent to the Justice Department within a day of the redacted report’s delivery if Mr. Barr has withheld material the committee deems necessary for its work.

Promising more transparency, the government said it would let a select group of lawmakers see some of the material related to the case against Roger J. Stone Jr. that had been redacted from the initial public version of the report, according to a filing on Wednesday in the Stone case. Mr. Stone was indicted in January for lying to federal prosecutors, witness tampering and trying to obstruct the special counsel’s investigation.

[...]

“He has demonstrated that he understands loyalty to the president, rather than an oath to the Constitution,” [Representative David Cicilline, Democrat of Rhode Island and a member of the Judiciary Committee] said, before comparing Mr. Barr to Roy Cohn, one of Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyers known for his fierce efforts to protect his boss. “The president said, ‘I want to have my own Roy Cohn,’ and he may have found him.”

Democrats in recent weeks have accelerated investigations of the president, his campaign, businesses and administration, issuing a flurry of subpoenas and voluntary requests that could aid their work. They intend to incorporate whatever they glean from Thursday’s report into those investigations, which they argue Congress has its own constitutional duty to conduct regardless of Mr. Barr’s conclusion.

Doing so could also allow party leaders to cool any potential heat within the party to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president — a possibility Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California has repeatedly said would be politically unwise, absent startling new evidence of wrongdoing.

Nancy Pelosi is outliving her usefulness.

Mr. Trump’s legal team never thoroughly debriefed Mr. McGahn’s lawyer about what his client told investigators, leaving the president’s lawyers in the dark about what Mr. McGahn said. In recent weeks, White House officials have grown increasingly concerned about what Mr. McGahn told the Mueller team and believe his statements could be used in the report to paint a damning portrait of the president, two people close to the White House said.

[...]

Mr. Barr gave ammunition to [efforts to clear the president of criminal obstruction of justice] last week, when he described law enforcement surveillance of the Trump campaign as “spying.” The remark reinforced a narrative long pushed by Mr. Trump and his allies in Congress — that a “deep state” tried to prevent Mr. Trump from becoming president and has tried to undo his presidency.

Mr. Barr’s comments sent shudders through law enforcement ranks and surprised many who saw him as a stabilizing force whose instincts would be to protect the Justice Department from political attacks — unlike former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Matthew G. Whitaker, who held the job in an acting capacity after the president forced out Mr. Sessions.

They had their eyes closed and their fingers in their ears, and don't read.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.