It's in the NY Times so it must be true, right?!
White House Counsel "Cooperating Extensively" With Obstruction Probe, Spent 30 Hours With Mueller
White House counsel Donald McGahn II, has been quietly cooperating "extensively" with special counsel Robert Mueller in his probe of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to an explosive New York Times report published Saturday afternoon.
Sources told the Times that McGahn has had at least three voluntary interviews with Mueller's team totaling 30 hours, in which he discussed accounts of multiple episodes at the center of Mueller's probe into whether President Trump obstructed justice, as well as the president’s furor toward the Russia investigation and the ways in which he urged McGahn to respond to it.
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.
Among the episodes McGahn reprotedly discussed with investigators is Trump’s firing last year of former FBI Director James Comey and the president's repeated urging of Attorney General Jeff Sessions to claim oversight of the special counsel despite his recusal from Russia probes. McGahn was also centrally involved in Trump’s attempts to fire the special counsel, Robert Mueller, himself which investigators might not have discovered without him.
Commenting on the report, Solomon L. Wisenberg, a deputy independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation "which did not have the same level of cooperation from President Bill Clinton’s lawyers", said that "a prosecutor would kill for that. Oh my God, it would have been phenomenally helpful to us. It would have been like having the keys to the kingdom.”
McGahn began cooperating with Mueller's team last year after Trump’s first round of personal lawyers decided to give investigators as much information as possible, believing the president had nothing to hide.
Trump assembled a personal legal team to defend him. He wanted to take on Mr. Mueller directly, attacking his credibility and impeding investigators. But two of his newly hired lawyers, John M. Dowd and Ty Cobb, have said they took Mr. Trump at his word that he did nothing wrong and sold him on an open-book strategy. As long as Mr. Trump and the White House cooperated with Mr. Mueller, they told him, they could bring an end to the investigation within months.
Mr. McGahn, who had objected to Mr. Cobb’s hiring, was dubious, according to people he spoke to around that time. As White House counsel, not a personal lawyer, he viewed his role as protector of the presidency, not of Mr. Trump. Allowing a special counsel to root around the West Wing could set a precedent harmful to future administrations.
However, McGahn eventually became concerned over his growing exposure in the investigation and began to suspect the president was setting him up to take the fall for any alleged obstruction of justice.
cont.:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-18/white-house-counsel-cooperating-extensively-obstruction-probe-spent-30-hours