Don McGahn Reportedly Wasn’t Aware Trump Planned to Send Tweet Announcing His Departure
In today’s installment of I Alone Can Tweet It, President Donald Trump‘s announcement of Don McGahn‘s departure today was apparently not something McGahn was aware of ahead of time.
Not that McGahn wasn’t planning on leaving, but that he wasn’t in the loop about Trump’s announcement after the Axios report this morning.
White House Counsel Don McGahn will be leaving his position in the fall, shortly after the confirmation (hopefully) of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court. I have worked with Don for a long time and truly appreciate his service!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 29, 2018
He was not aware that Trump planned to send the tweet before it posted, according to a person close to McGahn.
“He was surprised,” this person said. It’s an open secret inside the White House that McGahn planned to leave after Kavanaugh’s confirmation process concludes, though he had not discussed his plans directly with Trump, according to this person.
For that reason, McGahn was not angry, merely surprised. His general attitude after 18 months in this White House, this person said, was “of course it happened this way.”
McGahn is far from the first person in the White House to be blindsided by a Trump tweet.
The White House counsel had clashed with Trump a number of times, and as the New York Times reported months ago, he threatened to resign when Trump was talking about potentially firing Robert Mueller.
Earlier this month, the Times reported that McGahn “has cooperated extensively in the special counsel investigation.”
“I allowed White House Counsel Don McGahn, and all other requested members of the White House Staff, to fully cooperate with the Special Counsel,” Trump tweeted afterwards. “In addition we readily gave over one million pages of documents. Most transparent in history. No Collusion, No Obstruction. Witch Hunt!”
[photo via Getty Images]
