Report: Former White House counsel's last meeting with Trump was an awkward affair

Don McGahn looks at the back of Donald Trump&#039;s head.

(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

published 31 October 2018

President Trump wasn't going to let Don McGahn take it easy during his last day as White House counsel.

Several of McGahn's friends told CNN that during his final day at the White House earlier this month, McGahn met with Trump in the Oval Office, and was told he was to blame for the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and any ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Trump complained about how the probe has clouded his presidency, the friends said, and while he mostly focused on Mueller, he did have some "positive" things to say about McGahn.

McGahn had been planning his departure, but was surprised when Trump publicly announced in August he was stepping down, and was even more shocked when he named his successor during an interview with The Associated Press. One McGahn friend told CNN that "typically, you would have the incumbent stay until the successor was ready to take his place. But in this case, McGahn was tired of the president and the president was tired of McGahn." McGahn talked at length with Mueller's team, giving 30 hours of interviews. It's been reported that Trump asked McGahn to talk Attorney General Jeff Sessions out of recusing himself last year from the Russia investigation, and also that he told McGahn to fire Mueller; McGahn refused and threatened to resign.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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