President Donald Trump said he didn’t want the former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify before Congress, telling Fox News’ Catherine Herridge, “It’s done.”
Congress “shouldn’t be looking anymore,” Trump said in an interview on Thursday night.
“Nobody has ever done what I’ve done,” he said. “I’ve given total transparency. It’s never happened before like this. They shouldn’t be looking anymore. This is all. It’s done.”
McGahn, who spent 30 hours testifying before the special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, featured largely in Mueller’s findings on whether the president obstructed justice — which made up one of two volumes in Mueller’s full report on the Russia investigation.
The report says McGahn said that Trump had asked him to fire Mueller and that later, after news reports that Trump had made that request, the president asked McGahn to write a memo denying it “for our records.” McGahn did not fire Mueller and threatened to resign. He also refused to write the memo.
In his report, Mueller did not make a determination on whether to charge Trump with obstructing justice.
“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” the report says. “Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment.”
It continued: “Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Though Mueller’s investigation has ended, congressional inquiries have not. Some have argued that Mueller was leaving the obstruction-of-justice question up to Congress to sort out and not the Department of Justice, which declared shortly after the report was released in March that it showed that the president had not committed a crime.
Congress wants key players to testify, including McGahn and Mueller. Last week, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler, issued a subpoena for McGahn.
Read more: Trump raged at former White House counsel Don McGahn for taking notes about their conversations
“Mr. McGahn is a critical witness to many of the alleged instances of obstruction of justice and other misconduct described in the Mueller report,” Nadler said in a statement. “His testimony will help shed further light on the President’s attacks on the rule of law, and his attempts to cover up those actions by lying to the American people and requesting others do the same.”
After testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Attorney General William Barr refused an invitation to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, and he did not produce an unredacted copy of the report for Congress.
Though senior Democratic lawmakers have not put impeachment on the table, lawmakers are investigating the Trump Organization’s finances, as well as accusations of obstruction of justice, reports of improper issuance of security clearances, and more.
The Trump administration, however, does not seem likely to cooperate.
“We’re fighting all the subpoenas — these aren’t, like, impartial people,” Trump said last week. “The Democrats are trying to win 2020. They’re not going to win with the people that I see. And they’re not going to win against me.”
Source Article from https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-fox-news-don-mcgahn-should-not-testify-2019-5
Comments