Via the New York Times:
Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.
The West Wing confrontation marks the first time Mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the special counsel. Mr. Mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and former senior White House officials in his inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice.
Amid the first wave of news media reports that Mr. Mueller was examining a possible obstruction case, the president began to argue that Mr. Mueller had three conflicts of interest that disqualified him from overseeing the investigation, two of the people said.
First, he claimed that a dispute years ago over fees at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va., had prompted Mr. Mueller, the F.B.I. director at the time, to resign his membership. The president also said Mr. Mueller could not be impartial because he had most recently worked for the law firm that previously represented the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Finally, the president said, Mr. Mueller had been interviewed to return as the F.B.I. director the day before he was appointed special counsel in May.
After receiving the president’s order to fire Mr. Mueller, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, refused to ask the Justice Department to dismiss the special counsel, saying he would quit instead, the people said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing a continuing investigation.
Mr. McGahn disagreed with the president’s case and told senior White House officials that firing Mr. Mueller would have a catastrophic effect on Mr. Trump’s presidency. Mr. McGahn also told White House officials that Mr. Trump would not follow through on the dismissal on his own. The president then backed off.
This tells me that Trump is supremely aware of the fact that he’s guilty of something. Coming up with these lame-ass excuses for firing Mueller less than two months into the job shows us that he knows something bad is lying in wait, so he panics and tries to kill off the investigation — or at least slow it down — unaware or not caring that all it will do is intensify the focus on his campaign and what really went down.
What this also tells me is that Trump is a coward. Not that this is a huge news flash. And say what you will about Richard Nixon, crook and all, but at least he had the courage of his convictions and wouldn’t let the objections of a lawyer stand in his way. As it is, his own lawyer knows that Trump hasn’t got the gut to do his own dirty work because they both know that when the shit hits the fan, Trump is too afraid to take the heat without someone else to blame.
