The color-coded redaction-laden testimony-free version of the report produced by special counsel Robert Mueller is due to emerge on Thursday, and that has some White House officials concerned. According to NBC News, the concern isn’t that the report will show them as criminals who narrowly missed an indictment. The concern is that Donald Trump will learn what they told the special counsel and be angry at them for telling the truth.
Over a dozen members of Trump’s staff cooperated with the special counsel’s office over the course of the investigation. Many of them are probably breathing a sigh of relief that Attorney General William Barr is determined to hide every scrap of testimony before the grand jury, as well as everything to do with other potential cases, and everything that might have counterintelligence value, and anything that has to do with anyone who didn’t already get a list of indictments. That’s likely to make it difficult to discern just who said which thing about what happened.
But maybe not. And if Donald Trump can sniff out who in his White House let slip facts, those around him are expecting some serious wrath.
Some of those who cooperated have been having their lawyers talk to Barr’s lawyers to ask the critical question: Is my name redacted? Will the report be sufficiently butchered to disguise the sources of information? But apparently the Justice Department has not been providing answers clear enough to sooth jangly White House nerves. In fact, concern over what Trump might see on Thursday, and how he might react, is said to be creating “breakdown-level anxiety” among the staff.
However, there’s no real reason to worry about what’s in the report. Even redacted, the report is likely to run longer than the paragraph or two that represents the outside limits of Donald Trump’s attention span. He is not going to carefully scan through the pages and start screaming out names.
No. What matters for Trump’s staff is what Fox News says is in the report.
Rather than calling the Justice Department, White House staffers would be better off putting in their time talking to Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, and various Friends. There’s little doubt that Fox will slot the report in just below an annual reminder that it’s time to change the batteries in your smoke detector. Even then, 99 percent of all Fox time devoted to the report will be dedicated to repeating the “no collusion, no obstruction” mantra. The other 1 percent will be split mostly between declaring that Democrats never had a right to even this much, and reminding their viewers that the report was written by angry anti-Trumpists … who completely found Trump innocent of everything ever.
But should Sean or Lou start to ponder just where some particularly damning fact originated, that will be when White House staffers need to be concerned. So the best thing they can do is call now … and point the finger at someone else.
According to the NBC report, staffers are also worried that “new facts in the report could be disclosed that do not reflect favorably” on Trump. They need not worry. Barr already has a color code to handle that—though history suggests that when he finally gets around to letting slip the original report, the truth is going to be a lot uglier than Barr’s neat “summary.”
Still, staffers shouldn’t worry all that much. Plenty of people have had to leave Trump’s regime because their corruption became too obvious (see: Scott Pruitt or Ryan Zinke) or because they clashed with Trump over just which set of cruel, nonsensical policies should be followed (e.g., Kirstjen Nielsen or Gary Cohn). But Trump advisers having to flee because they told the truth?
That really hasn’t been an issue.
