We already knew Donald Trump tried to fire special counsel Robert Mueller last summer, but that’s not all. Trump also moved to fire Mueller in December, the New York Times reports.
In early December, President Trump, furious over news reports about a new round of subpoenas from the office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, told advisers in no uncertain terms that Mr. Mueller’s investigation had to be shut down.
The president’s anger was fueled by reports that the subpoenas were for obtaining information about his business dealings with Deutsche Bank, according to interviews with eight White House officials, people close to the president and others familiar with the episode. To Mr. Trump, the subpoenas suggested that Mr. Mueller had expanded the investigation in a way that crossed the “red line” he had set last year in an interview with The New York Times.
In the hours that followed Mr. Trump’s initial anger over the Deutsche Bank reports, his lawyers and advisers worked quickly to learn about the subpoenas, and ultimately were told by Mr. Mueller’s office that the reports were not accurate, leading the president to back down.
Time for every Capitol Hill reporter to go back to all those congressional Republicans who swear they don’t need to pass a bill protecting Mueller from illegitimate firing because Trump won’t do it and ask that question one more time. Because between this and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying that Trump feels he has the power to fire Mueller, it sure sounds like Trump is ready to do it the minute the investigation gets too close to home—and on Monday, it got pretty close to home.