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History repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce-as Marx said. And we see what a farce Watergate 2.0 has been. There’s a Howard Hunt 2.0-Michael Flynn 2.0-a G. Gordon Liddy-Paul Manafort-and a Rose Woods 2.0-Hope Hicks. I’ve argued previously that Michael Cohen is John Dean.

Of course, while Watergate was a tragedy, Watergate 2.0 is a farce and so Cohen himself in many ways is a farcical character-in truth he can’t hold a candle to John Dean who was a much better lawyer with some sort of actual ethical core that introduced itself late in the game. And that’s appropriate; Watergate 2.0 is a farce and everyone connected with it from Trump on down is farcical while Nixon and friends were tragic.

And there are a number of similarities between Dean and Cohen; Cohen like Dean before him, by flipping can bring Trump down.

But no comparison is 100% congruent, and there is now some very interesting news about the person who holds Dean’s actual job in Trump’s Administration: Don McGahn.

FN: Certainly the comparison of Hunt and Flynn is far from wholly congruent. Hunt  genuinely had great resentment against Nixon especially after what happened to his wife whereas despite all the cooperation Flynn has done in the investigation and how much damning information about Trump has has revealed-much of which hopefully per Judge Emmet Sullivan we will soon see-in his heart hes always remained a Trumpster-as shown by his ill advised attempt to claim he only lied because the FBI didn’t tell him it was bad.

Indeed, he’s going from the frying pan into the fire now by firing his very qualified and competent attorneys for a Fox News attorney-who is an inveterate Mueller basher and is doubling and tripling down on the idea that Flynn was entrapped.

End of FN.

McGahn has been cooperating with Mueller to a very great extent. While Trump has allowed him to speak freely to Mueller, he probably doesn’t realize just how much McGahn has cooperated with Mueller.

This is the same concern that lead John Dean to turn on Nixon and cooperate with the Watergate Independent Counsel; he-correctly-feared that Nixon would set him up as a fall guy. Indeed, when Nixon claimed that Dean had done an investigation and  was going to write a memo about what happened with the Watergate break in, Dean knew that was his moment to exit stage left. He didn’t want be found lying on the record.

McGahn seems to have concluded that the best way to avoid going to prison or getting swept up in this is to tell Mueller the full truth. 

“The White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, has cooperated extensively in the special counsel investigation, sharing 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, according to a dozen current and former White House officials and others briefed on the matter.”

“In at least three voluntary interviews with investigators that totaled 30 hours over the past nine months, Mr. McGahn described the president’s fury toward the Russia investigation and the ways in which he urged Mr. McGahn to respond to it. He provided the investigators examining whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice a clear view of the president’s most intimate moments with his lawyer.”

“Among them were Mr. Trump’s comments and actions during the firing of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and Mr. Trump’s obsession with putting a loyalist in charge of the inquiry, including his repeated urging of Attorney General Jeff Sessions to claim oversight of it. Mr. McGahn was also centrally involved in Mr. Trump’s attempts to fire the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, which investigators might not have discovered without him.”

UPDATE: Of course Trump would go on to install the ultimate loyalist in Coverup AG Barr.

“For a lawyer to share so much with investigators scrutinizing his client is unusual. Lawyers are rarely so open with investigators, not only because they are advocating on behalf of their clients but also because their conversations with clients are potentially shielded by attorney-client privilege, and in the case of presidents, executive privilege.”

Trump immediately attacked the messenger-the ‘failing NY Times’-which isn’t actually failing and even if it were would be besides the point.

Trump also appreciates the comparison of McGahn to John Dean:

Telling that Trump considers John Dean the villain of the first Watergate-a RAT.

But while he says this, he likely didn’t know that McGahn was telling Mueller material things the Special Counsel didn’t know about the Comey firing.

McGahn’s own attorney, William Burck.

Fulsomely as any person investigated by federal investigators must. 

John Dean approves:

And it’s clear that McGahn also saw the Dean comparison and was determined not to be Trump’ scapegoat.

“Worried that Mr. Trump would ultimately blame him in the inquiry, Mr. McGahn told people he was determined to avoid the fate of the White House counsel for President Richard M. Nixon, John W. Dean, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice in the Watergate scandal.”

“A prosecutor would kill for that,” said Solomon L. Wisenberg, a deputy independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation, which did not have the same level of cooperation from President Bill Clinton’s lawyers. “Oh my God, it would have been phenomenally helpful to us. It would have been like having the keys to the kingdom.”

“Mr. McGahn’s cooperation began in part as a result of a decision by Mr. Trump’s first team of criminal lawyers to collaborate fully with Mr. Mueller. The president’s lawyers have explained that they believed their client had nothing to hide and that they could bring the investigation to an end quickly.”

Still, don’t presume that Trump’s allowing this is because he’s so noble. Indeed, McGahn and Burck suspected that he was actually leaving McGahn enough rope to hang himself.

“Mr. McGahn and his lawyer, William A. Burck, could not understand why Mr. Trump was so willing to allow Mr. McGahn to speak freely to the special counsel and feared Mr. Trump was setting up Mr. McGahn to take the blame for any possible illegal acts of obstruction, according to people close to him. So he and Mr. Burck devised their own strategy to do as much as possible to cooperate with Mr. Mueller to demonstrate that Mr. McGahn did nothing wrong.”

“It is not clear that Mr. Trump appreciates the extent to which Mr. McGahn has cooperated with the special counsel. The president wrongly believed that Mr. McGahn would act as a personal lawyer would for clients and solely defend his interests to investigators, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking.”

“In fact, Mr. McGahn laid out how Mr. Trump tried to ensure control of the investigation, giving investigators a mix of information both potentially damaging and favorable to the president. Mr. McGahn cautioned to investigators that he never saw Mr. Trump go beyond his legal authorities, though the limits of executive power are murky.”

Wow-you mean McGahn actually understands his job is to serve not Donald Trump but the office of the WH itself? The idea that you serve your institution or national interest rather than act as a stooge to ‘protect the President’ would blow Devin Nunes’ and -his GOP friends-mind.

While Trump is trying to put a public positive spin on it via the tweets, it will further complicate his already complicated relationship with McGahn.

“Mr. McGahn’s role as a cooperating witness further strains his already complicated relationship with the president. Though Mr. Trump has fought with Mr. McGahn as much as with any of his top aides, White House advisers have said, both men have benefited significantly from their partnership.”

“Mr. McGahn has overseen two of Mr. Trump’s signature accomplishments — stocking the federal courts and cutting government regulations — and become a champion of conservatives in the process.”

“But the two rarely speak one on one — the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and other advisers are usually present for their meetings — and Mr. Trump has questioned Mr. McGahn’s loyalty. In turn, Mr. Trump’s behavior has so exasperated Mr. McGahn that he has called the president “King Kong” behind his back, to connote his volcanic anger, people close to Mr. McGahn said.”

Asked for comment, the White House sought to quell the sense of tension.

“The president and Don have a great relationship,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement. “He appreciates all the hard work he’s done, particularly his help and expertise with the judges, and the Supreme Court” nominees.

That was the largest campaign crowd in history period. 

Meanwhile, Bob Bauer, Obama’s Chief WH Counsel on what to make of McGahn’s cooperation. 

“The New York Times reports that White House Counsel Don McGahn has interviewed extensively with the special counsel, cooperating with the president’s consent but perhaps more extensively than President Trump may have anticipated. The result may be a further strain on what, according to the Times, was already a difficult working relationship. One source of the tension appears to be the president’s expectation of loyalty from a counsel who maintains a different view of his function—namely, that the White House counsel represents the office of the presidency and not the individual now occupying it.”

“It seems that relationship between lawyer and president is also, in this instance, infected with mistrust.  McGahn and his attorney are reported to have concluded that he should go the extra mile and tell Special Counsel Robert Mueller all he knows out of a concern that the president might have been preparing to blame McGahn—and specifically, his “shoddy advice”—for any legal issues Trump faced over alleged obstruction of justice in the Russia matter.”

“While remarkable reporting in a number of respects, the Times account of the Trump-McGahn relationship leaves open or unclear a number of key points about the role and obligations of the White House counsel in these circumstances.”

Bauer, as Obama’s WH Counsel is the perfect person to elaborate on these key points.

“A White House counsel is not in a position to reject or ignore a special prosecutor’s request for information relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation. The law on the fundamental point is clear. Precisely as the Times describes McGahn’s understanding of his role, the White House counsel is a government employee, not personal counsel to the president. Courts presented with the question have ruled that, in a criminal investigation, the attorney-client privilege does not shield a White House counsel from providing his or her evidence. Neither is executive privilege a safe harbor if the government can demonstrate need for the information and its unavailability from other sources.”

Bill Clinton’s WH unsuccessfully fought for privilege.

“The Clinton administration litigated and lost both privilege claims in defending against the independent counsel investigations. When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled unanimously on the application of the attorney-client privilege, it did so in no uncertain terms:

“To state the question is to suggest the answer, for the Office of the President is a part of the federal government, consisting of government employees doing government business, and neither legal authority nor policy nor experience suggests that a federal government entity can maintain the ordinary common law attorney-client privilege to withhold information relating to a federal criminal offense.”

As the lawyers say-asked and answered.

UPDATE: Don McGhan did indeed go on to have a starring role in the Mueller Report as he told Mueller of the multiple times Trump tried to get him to fire the Special Counsel-then he pushed him to deny that he’d tried to get him to fire him.

For this reason the Dems dearly want his public testimony though they have been unsuccessful to date securing it.

FN: Though why they aren’t calling other fact witnesses who are ready to testify now-Sater was slated for March then after Barr’s fake exoneration letter his hearing was cancelled and never rescheduled.

Trump has-what else-sought to impose reprisals-slandering him telling his lackeys to drop his law firm, etc-on McGahn for his fulsome testimony. 

While McGahn has to this point acceded to Trump’s fake executive privilege claim-it’s doubly fake both because McGahn isn’t currently in the Russia House and because this is regarding information Trump already waived in his testimony to Mueller.

On the other hand, McGahn has fought back. In May he-like Mueller-refused to say Trump had not obstructed Justice. 

Legal analyst Glenn Kirschner recently argued McGahn is waiting to be compelled to testify:

It’s hard not to agree after hearing the retort of McGahn’s camp to Trump’s slanderous attacks:

 

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