NYT: White House Counsel Cooperating ‘Extensively’ With Mueller

There is so much we don’t know.  That’s the bottom line from another stellar piece of reporting by The New York Times.  Michael Schmidt and Maggie Haberman are reporting that White House counsel Don McGahn has been cooperating with Mueller’s office for months.

• “In at least three voluntary interviews with investigators that totaled 30 hours over the past nine months, Mr. McGahn described the president’s furor toward the Russia investigation and the ways in which he urged Mr. McGahn to respond to it. He provided the investigators examining whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice a clear view of the president’s most intimate moments with his lawyer.”

• “For a lawyer to share so much with investigators scrutinizing his client is unusual. Lawyers are rarely so open with investigators, not only because they are advocating on behalf of their clients but also because their conversations with clients are potentially shielded by attorney-client privilege, and in the case of presidents, executive privilege.”

The Times reports that McGahn and his attorney couldn’t understand why Donald Trump was so willing to have the White House counsel speak with the special prosecutor.

McGahn feared a set up so he and his attorney, William Burck, devised a strategy to cooperate as much as possible to demonstrate McGahn’s innocence in any possible crime.

• It is not clear that Mr. Trump appreciates the extent to which Mr. McGahn has cooperated with the special counsel. The president wrongly believed that Mr. McGahn would act as a personal lawyer would for clients and solely defend his interests to investigators, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking.

It was most likely the above paragraph that brought this late Saturday afternoon response from Trump.