Donald Francis McGahn II (/dɒn məˈɡæn/; born June 16, 1968) is an American lawyer who served as White House Counsel for U.S. President Donald Trump, from the day of Trump's inauguration through October 17, 2018, when McGahn resigned.
Shortly after Trump won the election, he named McGahn General Counsel of the Presidential Transition Team. On November 25, 2016, McGahn was named White House Counsel for the President-elect's new administration.
McGahn prepared a one-line resignation letter after the White House came under pressure to withdraw Trump’s first nomination to the US supreme court, Neil Gorsuch, whom McGahn also had personally picked, according to the book. “Nominating judges was why he had taken the job,” Schmidt writes.
A day after the riot at the US Capitol, a White House lawyer advised an ally of former President Donald Trump to obtain a defense lawyer in connection with helping the Republican try to overturn the 2020 election results.
McGahn's private attorney stepped in to stop an answer only a few times Friday, according to the person connected to McGahn, because the committee was potentially veering toward privileged conversations between McGahn and his lawyer.
(CNN) Former Trump White House counsel Don McGahn confirmed before a congressional panel last week that former President Donald Trump urged him to oust special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated his 2016 campaign's ties to Russia, according to a transcript released Wednesday.
McGahn characterized Trump's unhappiness with Sessions as "having a showdown with his attorney general ... they don't teach you this in law school.". He also explained how Trump sometimes attempted to use McGahn like a personal lawyer rather than an advocate for the presidency. In one instance, when Trump questioned whether Mueller had ...
McGahn told the committee about how Trump had repeated conversations with him about Mueller, who he believed might have conflicts of interest and should be fired. The issue prompted Trump to demand that McGahn send a message to the Justice Department to oust Mueller, and he told McGahn to call Mueller's then-boss, Rosenstein, ...
McGahn had already described Trump's maneuvers to the Mueller team, but the Trump administration had blocked him from repeating the interviews with Congress.
Though Democrats said they were pleased with the substance of the interview, McGahn's retelling of his interactions largely affirmed Mueller's final, public report, and the questioning was limited to topics documented in the Mueller investigation. McGahn was interviewed by both Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary Committee in alternating rounds.
They declined to prosecute the President. Under the agreement for McGahn's testimony, House Judiciary Committee members and staff could ask him about the incidents documented in the Mueller report but unable to press McGahn on other scandals that occurred during Trump's presidency.
Washington (CNN) Former Trump White House counsel Don McGahn will testify before the House Judiciary Committee behind closed doors about then-President Donald Trump's attempts to obstruct the Russia investigation, the House and the Justice Department announced in a court filing Wednesday night.
The Mueller investigation relied on McGahn as one of its most significant witnesses against Trump. Mueller wrote in 2019 he was documenting the instances of obstruction so that Congress or future investigations could pick up the ball.
The agreement is a major concession from the executive branch after the Trump administration sought to broadly block former and current officials from testifying to Congress, and McGahn's recalcitrance ended up in court as the most potentially consequential case over testimony.
The committee members who interview McGahn can ask him about the incidents documented in the Mueller report of Trump's attempts to fire special counsel Robert Mueller and block the Russia investigation, and about the Mueller investigation's accuracy. The Justice Department can assert executive privilege or McGahn can decline to answer on other ...
The Justice Department can assert executive privilege or McGahn can decline to answer on other topics , which would essentially block House Democrats from learning details McGahn might know about other major scandals during Trump's presidency.
Mueller's report said that after Trump made his demands clear, McGahn told the president that he would look into it. Sarah Istel, the judiciary committee's lead counsel, asked McGahn about those comments last week. "'McGahn said he told the president that he would see what he could do,'" Istel said, reading from Mueller's final report.
He also said that he tried to "get off the phone" when Trump raised the subject. Don McGahn made the comments while testifying to Congress last week about the Mueller probe. Former White House counsel Don McGahn testified to Congress last week that he felt "trapped" when then President Donald Trump asked him to help engineer the removal ...
Istel later asked McGahn whether he felt concerned about his own potential liability and whether his involvement in orchestrating Mueller's removal could make him a target of the obstruction investigation.
McGahn ultimately stayed on as White House counsel but resigned in October 2018, six months before Mueller's report was released to the public. Sign up for notifications from Insider!
Former White House counsel Don McGahn endured screaming matches with Donald Trump, badgering phone calls at home on his birthday and the president saying “some crazy shit” in order to advance the project closest to McGahn’s heart: packing the federal judiciary with activist conservative judges. McGahn’s lead role in developing the roster ...
Trump thundered at Sessions. On multiple occasions, Schmidt writes, McGahn prepared his resignation as White House counsel, whose role is to give the president legal advice as it relates to the office of the presidency.
Don McGahn endured screaming matches and badgering calls to advance his pet project: pack courts with conservative judges. The White House counsel, Don McGahn, listens to supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as he testifies before the US Senate judiciary committee on Capitol Hill on 27 September 2018. Photograph: Reuters.