Don McGahn was barely on speaking terms with President Donald Trump when he left the White House last fall. But special counsel Robert Mueller's report reveals the president may owe his former top lawyer a debt of gratitude.
McGahn, who sat with Mueller for about 30 hours of interviews, emerged as a central character in Mueller's painstaking investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice and impeded the years-long Russia investigation. In one striking scene , Mueller recounts how Trump called McGahn twice at home and directed him to set Mueller's firing in motion. McGahn recoiled and threatened to resign instead.
McGahn's relationship with the president was turbulent. A prominent Washington attorney, he joined Trump's campaign as counsel in 2015 and followed him to the White House, but the two men never developed a close rapport. His departure last fall came as little surprise. William Alden McDaniel, a lawyer who represented targets and witnesses in the Ken Starr investigation, as well a high-ranking officials in the Iran-Contra scandal, said McGahn appeared to be "one of the few people in the administration to stand up to the president" and that "takes a certain amount of principle."
Trump responded by questioning McGahn's tendency to take notes and draft memoranda outlining his advice to the president for the historical record. McGahn did not respond to a request for comment Thursday and nearly a dozen friends and former colleagues mostly spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid upsetting him, describing him as a private person.
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