WASHINGTON – Special Counsel Robert Mueller has obtained a letter that President Donald Trump and a top political aide drafted in the days before Trump fired the FBI director, James Comey, which explains the president's rationale for why he planned to dismiss the director.
The May letter had been met with opposition from Donald McGahn, the White House counsel, who believed that some of its contents were problematic, according to interviews with a dozen administration officials and others briefed on the matter.
McGahn successfully blocked the president from sending Comey the letter, which Trump had composed with Stephen Miller, one of the president's top political advisers. A different letter, written by the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, and focused on Comey's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server, was ultimately sent to the FBI director on the day he was fired.
The contents of the original letter appear to provide the clearest rationale that Trump had for firing Comey. It is unclear how much of Trump's rationale focuses on the Russia investigation, although Trump told aides at the time he was angry that Comey refused to publicly say that Trump himself was not under investigation. Comey later said in testimony to Congress that the president was not under investigation.
Mueller is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into Russia and associates of Trump, including whether the president obstructed justice when he dismissed the FBI director.
The Justice Department turned over a copy of the letter to Mueller in recent weeks.
Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer, declined to discuss the letter or its contents.
"To the extent the special prosecutor is interested in these matters, we will be fully transparent with him," he said.
