White House counsel Don McGahn has cooperated extensively with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling and alleged Trump campaign collusion, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Citing a dozen unnamed sources, the Times reports McGahn has shared "detailed accounts about the episodes at the heart of the inquiry into whether President Trump obstructed justice, including some that investigators would not have learned of otherwise." He has voluntarily given about 30 hours of interviews to the Mueller team spread across at least three sessions since December, offering information including Trump's directions for how McGahn should respond to Mueller's moves.
It is unclear, the Times notes, whether Trump has fully realized McGahn has taken this approach, which is extremely unusual for a defense attorney. "A prosecutor would kill for that," Solomon L. Wisenberg, a deputy independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation into former President Bill Clinton, told the Times. "Oh my God, it would have been phenomenally helpful to us. It would have been like having the keys to the kingdom."
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McGahn originally began sharing information with Mueller in this manner, the report says, because he was concerned Trump intended to use him as a fall guy to escape any obstruction of justice charges. His cooperation was intended to demonstrate his own innocence.
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