The Mueller report: analysis at the Times

Mr. Mueller’s report painted a damning portrait of a White House dominated by a president desperate to thwart the inquiry only to be restrained by aides equally desperate to thwart his orders.

The White House that emerges from more than 400 pages of Mr. Mueller’s report is a hotbed of conflict infused by a culture of dishonesty — defined by a president who lies to the public and his own staff, then tries to get his aides to lie for him. Mr. Trump repeatedly threatened to fire lieutenants who did not carry out his wishes while they repeatedly threatened to resign rather than cross lines of propriety or law.

At one juncture after another, Mr. Trump made his troubles worse, giving in to anger and grievance and lashing out in ways that turned advisers into witnesses against him. [...] Based on contemporaneous notes, emails, texts and F.B.I. interviews, the report draws out scene after scene of a White House on the edge.

  NYT

All together now: FAKE NEWS!

At one point, Reince Priebus, then the White House chief of staff, said the president’s attacks on his own attorney general meant that he had “D.O.J. by the throat.” At another, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, complained to Mr. Priebus that the president was trying to get him to “do crazy shit.” Mr. Trump was equally unhappy with Mr. McGahn, calling him a “lying bastard.”

[...]

Just weeks after taking office, Mr. Trump pushed out his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, who lied to the F.B.I. about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador.

But Mr. Trump hugged Mr. Flynn, telling him: “We’ll give you a good recommendation. You’re a good guy. We’ll take care of you.”

[...]

“The president cares about you,” Mr. Kushner told Mr. Flynn. “I’ll get the president to send out a positive tweet about you later.”

Mr. Trump was worried about Mr. Comey, too. During the lunch, he asked [Chris] Christie to call his friend Mr. Comey. “Tell him he’s part of the team,” Mr. Trump instructed.

Mr. Christie thought the president’s request was “nonsensical” and never followed through.

[...]

The president asked Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, if he could do anything to rebut news stories on the Russia matter. The admiral’s deputy, Richard Ledgett, who was present for the call, considered it the most unusual experience of his 40 years in government and prepared a memo describing the call that he and Admiral Rogers signed and put in a safe.

[...]

Mr. Trump increasingly focused his ire on Mr. Comey, who during testimony on Capitol Hill on May 3, 2017, refused to answer questions about whether the president himself was under investigation.

Angry, Mr. Trump wheeled on Mr. Sessions. “This is terrible, Jeff,” he said. “It’s all because you recused.” He added: “You left me on an island. I can’t do anything.”

Mr. Sessions said he had no choice, but said that a new start at the F.B.I. would be appropriate and that the president should consider replacing Mr. Comey.

[...]

Mr. Trump demanded that his attorney general resign. Mr. Sessions said he would, and he returned to the Oval Office the next day with a resignation letter he handed to Mr. Trump.

The president put the letter in his pocket and repeatedly asked Mr. Sessions whether he wanted to continue serving as attorney general. When Mr. Sessions finally said he did, the president said he wanted him to stay. The two shook hands, but Mr. Trump kept the letter.

When they learned about the letter, Mr. Priebus and Mr. Bannon worried that if he kept it, Mr. Trump could use it to improperly influence Mr. Sessions; it would, said Mr. Priebus, serve as a “shock collar” keeping the attorney general on a leash.

Which is why Trump is bitching about Don McGahn taking notes: he knows the value of something in writing.

The next day, May 19, Mr. Trump left the White House for the Middle East. On Air Force One flying from Saudi Arabia to Israel three days later, the president took the letter from his pocket and showed it off to aides. Later on the trip, when Mr. Priebus asked Mr. Trump for the letter, the president claimed he did not have it and it was actually back at the White House.

That's taking gaslighting beyond the pale.

Three days after the president returned to Washington, he finally returned the letter to Mr. Sessions with a note: “Not accepted.”

But he did not give up trying to regain control of the investigation, calling Mr. Sessions at home to ask if he would “unrecuse” himself and direct the Justice Department to prosecute Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Sessions refused.

[...]

On June 17, Mr. Trump called Mr. McGahn from Camp David and told him to have Mr. Rosenstein fire Mr. Mueller because of conflicts of interest.

[...]

“Mueller has to go,” he told Mr. McGahn. “Call me back when you do it.”

Mr. McGahn decided he would resign, determined not to repeat the experience of Robert H. Bork, who complied with President Richard M. Nixon’s order to fire the Watergate prosecutor during the Saturday Night Massacre before going on to serve as an appeals court judge.

[...]

When Mr. McGahn told Mr. Priebus and Mr. Bannon, they urged him not to resign and he backed off.

[...]

Undeterred, Mr. Trump summoned his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to the White House two days later and dictated a message for him to deliver to Mr. Sessions that would have effectively limited the scope of the investigation to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

In the message, Mr. Trump ordered Mr. Sessions to give a speech declaring that Mr. Trump was “being treated very unfairly” by the investigation.

“He shouldn’t have a Special Prosecutor/Counsel b/c he hasn’t done anything wrong,” Mr. Sessions was to say. “I was on the campaign w/him for nine months, there were no Russians involved with him. I know it for a fact b/c I was there. He didn’t do anything wrong except he ran the greatest campaign in American history.”

Jeff might not do it, but Barr had no hesitation.

In late June, presidential advisers and lawyers learned about a Trump Tower meeting with Russians during the campaign hosted by Donald Trump Jr., along with Mr. Kushner and Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman. But the president said he did not want to hear about it.

[...]

A few days later, at the office of Mr. Kushner’s lawyer, Hope Hicks, the president’s communications adviser, saw emails about setting up the meeting and offering “dirt” on Mrs. Clinton on behalf of the Russian government. In a meeting, Mr. Kushner played down the encounter with the Russians, telling the president it was about adoption.

Ms. Hicks suggested getting ahead of the story by having Donald Trump Jr. release the emails as part of an interview with “softball questions.” She warned that the emails were “really bad” and the story would be “massive” when it broke, but the president again said he did not want to hear about it.

Nevertheless, it proves he knew about it.

On Dec. 6, five days after Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about contacts with the Russian government, Mr. Trump pulled Mr. Sessions aside after a cabinet meeting and again suggested he “unrecuse” himself. “You’d be a hero,” he said, while saying he was not going to “direct you to do anything.”

He's crazy, but he's often alert enough to keep his hands off the guns.

In January 2018, The Times reported about the president’s June 2017 effort to have Mr. Mueller fired. A livid Mr. Trump pressed Mr. McGahn to publicly rebut the story, but he would not because the article accurately reported the president’s desires.

Mr. Trump insisted that Mr. McGahn deny it. “If he doesn’t write a letter, then maybe I’ll have to get rid of him,” the president said, or something to that effect.

John F. Kelly, who had replaced Mr. Priebus as chief of staff, then arranged a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. McGahn.

“I never said to fire Mueller,” Mr. Trump said. “I never said ‘fire.’ This story doesn’t look good. You need to correct this. You’re the White House counsel.”

[...]

“What you said is, ‘Call Rod, tell Rod that Mueller has conflicts and can’t be the special counsel,’” Mr. McGahn replied. He refused the president’s request that he “do a correction.”

Mr. Trump then complained about Mr. McGahn writing things down. “Why do you take notes? Lawyers don’t take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes.”

Hell, he had Michael Cohen who made tapes.

Mr. McGahn maintained he took notes because he was a “real lawyer” and they create a record.

“I’ve had a lot of great lawyers, like Roy Cohn,” Mr. Trump said. “He did not take notes.”

But Mr. McGahn did. And so did plenty of others.

I bet Roy Cohn took notes when it was to his advantage.  The rest of the time, he wouldn't want to have a paper trail of all the immoral and illegal shit they were into.

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