There may be a very poor substitute for a President sitting in the Oval Office, but it appears the professionals who run the joint have the survival of the United States firmly in mind, as former White House Counsel Bob Bauer explains on Lawfare with regard to current Counsel McGahn’s behavior when told to fire Special Counsel Mueller by President Trump:
Of course, McGahn would have had every reason to object to the peculiar, if not wholly specious, grounds that the president apparently asserted for a firing. What counsel would have wished to advise the Justice Department that Mueller’s fatal “conflict” arose out of his unwillingness to remain a member of a Trump golf facility that had raised its fees?
McGahn just as likely understood the high stakes for his office and for his credibility within the administration. The president was asking that McGahn carry out an order with which he strongly disagreed—an order perhaps designed in the first instance in consultation with Kasowitz, his personal lawyer. McGahn would then be acting as mere messenger for an action certain to plunge the White House into controversy and further legal difficulty. McGahn would have shared in the blame but not the actual responsibility. He would have obeyed Trump’s command in an institutionally weakened state, suffering more weakness as the predictable result.
It is interesting that McGahn may have made his intention to resign clear, but according to the Washington Post, he did not communicate it directly to the president. He seems to have been keeping his distance—or otherwise his relationship with the president may have become distant. It is striking that a Counsel to the President who considered resigning at any time, much less in these circumstances, would rely on others to send the message. That this may have happened certainly suggests that McGahn was at the time functioning, at least in relation to Russia matters, on the periphery of the president’s inner advisory circle.
It’s reassuring to read that most or all of the professionals in the White House have the survival of the White House as an institution (I don’t mean the Trump White House by that phrase) firmly in mind. It speaks to the wisdom of those many people who’ve had to deal with one of the more delicate situations in the American governmental system over the years, no doubt motivated by the many sights of rampaging dictatorships in other countries. Kudos to them, from then to now, and presumably to Counsel McGahn for following faithfully in their footsteps.
