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Which is, in part, true. Being the lead attorney in any White House is stressful. Being the lead attorney in the Trump White House is roughly equivalent to my stress level when one of my kids is the first performer at a piano recital.
But, but, but. Context matters — HUGELY — here.
“The meetings only add complications to the already-fraught relationship between the President and the White House’s top lawyer. And as nervous aides await a verdict in former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s trial and watch with trepidation the inauspicious public relations blitz carried by lead attorney Rudy Giuliani, uncertainty surrounding the President’s handling of the Russia investigation abounds.”
When asked Wednesday whether he was worried about what McGahn told the special counsel, Trump said, “No.”
“We do everything straight, we do everything by the book, and Don is an excellent guy,” the President said.
So. What we know is that a man intimately involved in several of the most high-profile moments in the first 18 months of the Trump White House (and who was a legal adviser to Trump’s campaign) is now leaving — news that broke less than two weeks after the President was caught by surprise by McGahn’s level of cooperation with the special counsel.
Or, let’s make it even simpler: The man who single-handedly kept Donald Trump from firing Mueller is now leaving the White House, 11 days after the extent of his cooperation with that same special counsel was made public.
If McGahn’s departure had nothing to do with the ongoing legal and political swirl created by the Mueller probe, he could have easily delayed his departure into the private sector for a few more months — maybe lasting until after the Mueller report was released. He isn’t. That’s telling.
Make no mistake: None of this is “going according to plan” for the Trump administration. McGahn’s departure takes an already difficult situation for this White House and this President and makes it that much tougher. No spin can change that basic fact.
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