President Donald Trump urged his White House counsel to call on Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the Department of Justice’s probe into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, CNBC reports.
A person familiar with the matter said that Trump ordered the meeting with Don McGahn, the White House counsel, and Sessions right before the attorney general announced his recusal from the Russia investigation. Details of the conversation were confirmed by two other people.
Special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigative team are familiar with the episode which may be of interest to them as they are trying to determine whether Trump’s presidential actions, including the firing of FBI Director James Comey in May, amount to improper efforts to obstruct the Russia investigation.
Sessions announced that he would step down from the investigation last March, saying that he should not oversee a probe into a campaign for which he was an active and vocal supporter even though prior to the recusal it was revealed that Sessions had two previously undisclosed interactions during the 2016 campaign with the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Just before that, McGahn spoke to the attorney general by phone, urging him not to recuse himself from the probe as there was no basis to do so, people familiar with the exchange said.
McGahn was criticized on Thursday by Walter Shaub, former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, for his lobbying Session, The Hill reported.
“This story infuriates me. I am outraged by McGahn undermining the rule of law in the country I love. While McGahn was demanding Sessions’ break the law, I was on the other line with DOJ demanding Sessions recuse. What I think of your attack on America, McGahn, isn’t fit to print,” Shaub tweeted.
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