In a new podcast, Trump’s lawyer during a critical time, John Dowd explained what was really going on with Sessions, Mueller, and the President. He was the President’s lawyer from June 2017 until March 2018. The relationship between the President and Mueller was not at all what people thought.
Trump fully cooperated with Mueller and told Dowd on more than one occasion to tell Mueller that he respected Mueller’s work. [You could actually see some of that in public.]
The Washington Examiner’s Byron York conducted the interviews.
Mueller knew Trump’s bashing of his investigation as a “witch hunt” was what he had to do to defend himself.
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“Bob understood this, it was political,” Dowd said. ” [Trump] had to handle the political side, and that was his way of doing it with his tweets and his comments … Bob was a big boy about the political side of it. He understood the president had to address the politics of it. He couldn’t just say nothing. People were pounding him about this thing every day, both privately and publicly, and he had to take [Mueller] on.”
In private, the President was really “cooperating big-time” with Mueller and his office. He told everyone to cooperate with Mueller.
THE RELATIONSHIP WAS NOT ADVERSARIAL
The relationship, Dowd said, was not “adversarial,” it was “inquisitorial.”
In the end, Dowd said, Mueller “acknowledged that all the witnesses told the truth, all the documents were there, there was nothing missing, no documents destroyed.” The level of cooperation, Dowd said, was “truly remarkable,” all while the president distracted the world with his tweets.
There is no way the President could be charged with obstruction given the level of cooperation, despite what the Democrats are currently saying.
The reasons Mueller didn’t subpoena the President after he declined an interview were, according to Dowd, first, Mueller had no underlying crime and, secondly, there was extensive cooperation. As a result, Mueller couldn’t show information was available nowhere else.
That’s not what Democrats said was happening as they continually described Mueller tightening the noose around the President.
Mueller also gave Trump a backchannel — they spoke in code — and let him know when news stories were false.
DOWD SHREDDED SESSIONS
What Dowd said about Sessions was perhaps the most interesting piece of information.
“[Sessions] was just a miserable failure as an attorney general, I don’t feel sorry for him at all. [Trump] had good reasons to be upset with Sessions’ performance.” Beyond that, Dowd said, “The guy [Sessions] hurt him. He hurt him. He did tremendous injury to the president, and shame on him for doing it. And I agree with the president. I’d have fired the son of a bitch right away.”
The fact that the probe happened at all still outrages Dowd. Sessions didn’t even know Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller or how any of it came about.
There wasn’t even a crime. Rosenstein acted very unprofessionally.
Dowd said:
Sessions, of course, had recused himself from the Russia investigation, an action that made Trump angry to this day. Now, in the Oval Office, the attorney general was blindsided by the Mueller news. “Sessions was just horrified,” Dowd said. “He was so embarrassed. And the president said [to Sessions] how could you not know? And Jody Hunt, who was the chief of staff for the attorney general, did not know, and he was horrified. And poor Sessions resigned right then and there. They started drafting a resignation letter. He was so embarrassed and humiliated.”
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