Ex-WH Counsel Don McGahn Had No 'Executive Privilege' BEFORE Trump Shatteth Upon It On Live Teevee
Ding dong, Congress calling.
Paging Don McGahn! Donald Trump just backed that orange MAGA bus up and ran your sorry ass over. AGAIN. Thank you for your patriotic service to the nation!
The former White House Counsel is currently locked in a battle over his testimony with the House Judiciary Committee, and Donald Trump just pantsed him but good. Because McGahn already defied a congressional subpoena, fobbing off Chairman Jerry Nadler just a few hours before his scheduled testimony with a vaguely worded letter alluding to "Executive Branch equities." Note that McGahn's very good lawyer Bill Burck did not assert "executive privilege" (although he did quote the White House claiming it) since privilege has an actual, legal standard, and he will likely lose if and when he tries to assert it in court. Particularly in light of the fact that we've all read what he said already, assholes.
Clearly, if there was ever any privilege to McGahn's testimony, it was already waived when the Justice Department allowed the substance of it to be published in the Mueller Report. But McGahn's laughable claim that he can't possibly tell Congress what he already told Robert Mueller got a lot more rancid yesterday when Donald Trump shit all over it on television.
EXCLUSIVE: Pres. Trump tells @GStephanopoulos he never suggested firing special counsel Robert Mueller—and what ex-… https://t.co/DiNxxoNYGu
— ABC News (@ABC News) 1560504906.0
TRUMP: Number 1, I was never gonna fire Mueller. I never suggested firing Mueller. I don't care what he says. It doesn't matter. That was to show everyone what a good counsel he was.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But why would Don McGahn lie under oath to Robert Mueller?
TRUMP: Because he wanted to make himself look like a good lawyer. Or he believed it because I would constantly tell anybody that would listen, including you, including the media, that Robert Mueller was conflicted. Robert Mueller had a total conflict of interest.
"STEPHANOPOULOS: "He has to go?" [McGahn's quote of Trump in Mueller Report.]
TRUMP: I didn't say that.
Don McGahn hallucinated that Trump called him up and ordered him to fire Mueller on multiple occasions after eleventy hundred hours of listening to the old man rant about Robert Mueller's non-existent conflicts? Did Corey Lewandowski also hallucinate being told to fire Jeff Sessions if he wouldn't unrecuse himself and put an end to the Russia investigation? And James Comey hallucinated being told to "go easy" on Michael Flynn? In fact, there must have been a group hallucination about the original letter that Kushner, Trump, and Stephen Miller cooked up explicitly firing Comey because of Russia, after which Don McGahn flipped his shit and got Rod Rosenstein to draft that idiotic memo firing Comey because he was mean to Hillary Clinton. DEEP STATE probably put psilocybin in the White House water supply!
If there ever was any privilege in conversations with the White House Counsel -- and Harriet Miers would beg to differ -- it's gone now. Once the holder of the privilege flaps his yap about the conversation to a third party, it's waived. That would include going on a widely viewed television program and denying the existence of said conversation. It would also include repeating one's own private statements about Mueller's "conflicts." President Blabbermouth Footshooter strikes again!
Just to be clear, there never was any privilege, it was dead when the White House allowed McGahn to testify about it to Mueller, it continued to be dead when Trump failed to exert executive privilege over sections of the Mueller Report pertaining to McGahn's testimony, and Trump just slurped up the brains of whatever zombie privilege McGahn was clinging to like a life raft.
LOL, remember Wednesday when Congress voted to allow Judiciary Chairman Nadler to sue Don McGahn to compel his testimony and force him to produce documents to the committee? Well McGahn didn't have any defense yesterday, and he has even less of one today.
So much for making himself look like a good lawyer, huh?
[ ABC ]
Follow your FDF on Twitter!
Please click here to fund your Wonkette, who made it through another week with you!
I would particularly enjoy watching Kamala Harris conduct the impeachment investigation on Trump's mottled lumpy ass.
Trump and McGhan....oil and water.