{"id":177595,"date":"2018-08-19T22:48:18","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T02:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=177595"},"modified":"2018-08-19T22:48:18","modified_gmt":"2018-08-20T02:48:18","slug":"trump-says-white-house-counsel-not-rat-like-nixons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/08\/19\/trump-says-white-house-counsel-not-rat-like-nixons\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says his White House counsel not a ‘RAT’ like Nixon’s"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cThe president encouraged him to testify, is happy that he did, is quite secure that there is nothing in the testimony that will hurt the president.\u201d (File Photo<\/a>: Gage Skidmore\/Flickr\/CC BY-SA 2.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. \u2014 President Donald Trump insisted Sunday that his White House counsel isn’t a \u201cRAT\u201d like the Watergate-era White House attorney who turned on Richard Nixon, and he blasted the ongoing Russia investigation as \u201cMcCarthyism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, in a series of angry tweets, denounced a New York Times story that his White House counsel, Don McGahn, has been co-operating extensively with the special counsel team investigating Russian election meddling and potential collusion with Trump’s Republican campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe failing ?nytimes wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel, he must be a John Dean type ‘RAT,\u201d’ Trump wrote, misspelling the word \u201ccounsel,\u201d as he often does. \u201cBut I allowed him and all others to testify – I didn’t have to. I have nothing to hide……\u201d<\/p>\n

The New York Times said it stands by its story.<\/p>\n

Dean, a frequent critic of the president, was the White House counsel for Nixon during the Watergate scandal. He ultimately co-operated with prosecutors and helped bring down the Nixon presidency in 1974, though he served a prison term for obstruction of justice.<\/p>\n

Dean tweeted Saturday night in response to the Times story: \u201cTrump, a total incompetent, is bungling and botching his handling of Russiagate. Fate is never kind to bunglers and\/or botchers! Unlike Nixon, however, Trump won’t leave willingly or graciously.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added Sunday in response to Trump’s tweets that he doubts the president has \u201cANY IDEA what McGahn has told Mueller. Also, Nixon knew I was meeting with prosecutors, b\/c I told him. However, he didn’t think I would tell them the truth!\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump’s original legal team had encouraged McGahn and other White House officials to co-operate with special counsel Robert Mueller, and McGahn spent hours in interviews.<\/p>\n

Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said in an appearance on NBC’s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d that Trump didn’t raise executive privilege or attorney-client privilege during those interviews because his team believed \u2014 he says now, wrongly \u2014 that fully participating would be the fastest way to bring the investigation to a close.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe president encouraged him to testify, is happy that he did, is quite secure that there is nothing in the testimony that will hurt the president,\u201d Giuliani said.<\/p>\n

McGahn’s attorney William Burck added in a statement: \u201cPresident Trump, through counsel, declined to assert any privilege over Mr. McGahn’s testimony, so Mr. McGahn answered the Special Counsel team’s questions fulsomely and honestly, as any person interviewed by federal investigators must.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump on Sunday continued to rail against the Mueller investigation, which he has labeled a \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many lives have been ruined over nothing – McCarthyism at its WORST!\u201d Trump tweeted, referencing the indiscriminate and damaging allegations made by Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s to expose communists.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudy the late Joseph McCarthy, because we are now in period with Mueller and his gang that make Joseph McCarthy look like a baby! Rigged Witch Hunt!\u201d he later wrote.<\/p>\n

Giuliani, in his interview, also acknowledged that the reason for the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Trump campaign aides and a Russian lawyer, arranged by Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., was that they had been promised dirt on Trump’s 2016 Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe meeting was originally for the purpose of getting information about Clinton,\u201d he said, adding that the Trump team didn’t know that Natalia Veselnitskaya was Russian \u2014 even though emails later released by Trump Jr. show that she had been described as a \u201cRussian government attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giuliani also tried to make the case that having Trump sit down for an interview with Mueller’s team wouldn’t accomplish much because of the he-said-she-said nature of witnesses’ recollections.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s somebody’s version of the truth, not the truth,\u201d he said, telling NBC’s Chuck Todd: \u201cTruth isn’t truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Todd appeared flummoxed by the comment, responding: \u201cThis is going to become a bad meme.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. \u2014 President Donald Trump insisted Sunday that his White House counsel isn’t a \u201cRAT\u201d like the Watergate-era White …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":172226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-jill-colvin","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}