President Donald Trump wrote a series of messages over the weekend of Aug. 18 and 19 criticizing The New York Times about a story that suggested White House counsel Don McGahn has gone to unusual lengths to assist the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller.
The newspaper detailed that McGahn had provided 30 hours of testimony to Mueller, as well as details the special counsel would not have otherwise discovered. In response, Trump clarified that he had cleared McGahn and other members of his team to cooperate fully with Mueller because he has nothing to hide.
“The failing [New York Times] wrote a Fake piece today implying that because White House Councel [sic] Don McGahn was giving hours of testimony to the Special Councel [sic], he must be a John Dean type ‘RAT.’ But I allowed him and all others to testify - I didn’t have to,” Trump wrote.
“I have nothing to hide and have demanded transparency so that this Rigged and Disgusting Witch Hunt can come to a close,” he added. “So many lives have been ruined over nothing - McCarthyism at its WORST! Yet Mueller & his gang of Dems refuse to look at the real crimes on the other side - Media is even worse!”
The president also said that the two reporters who wrote the story, Michael Schmidt and Maggie Haberman, knew that it was not true that McGahn had “turned” on the president. Trump has previously criticized Haberman as a “Hillary flunky.”
According to the president, some members of the media were “very angry” about the New York Times report and called to complain and apologize, which he called “a big step forward.”
“From the day I announced, the Times has been Fake News, and with their disgusting new Board Member, it will only get worse!” Trump wrote on Aug. 19.
The “disgusting new board member” the president is likely referring to is Sarah Jeong, a writer with a history of making racist comments toward white people. Jeong was recently hired by the newspaper for its editorial board. After a batch of racist tweets by Jeong came to light, the newspaper defended hiring Jeong.
Jeong’s response was that the tweets were “intended as satire” and that she was mimicking “the language of [her] harassers.”
In another message, the president suggested that the collusion and obstruction for which he is under investigation were actually committed by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
Since last year, investigators in Congress probing allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia have unearthed voluminous evidence that a small group of senior officials at the FBI and the Justice Department colluded to investigate the Trump campaign. The officials used shaky evidence scooped from a dossier of unverified opposition research compiled by a former British spy and paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Several of the senior officials involved in the operations, including then-FBI Director James Comey, then-FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and then-Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok, have been fired. Others have been demoted or have resigned.
“All of the resignations and corruption, yet heavily conflicted Bob Mueller refuses to even look in that direction,” Trump wrote.
