Mueller’s mystery referrals are ‘fueling anxiety’ in the White House as Trump rages against notetakers: report
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump once again fumed about the Mueller report, calling it a “witch hunt.”
Although the President initially appeared to celebrate the report’s findings — based on the very truncated Barr memo — sources behind the scenes tell Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman that he was always furious about what he knew the full report would reveal.
Trump has reserved most of his public ire for former White House Special Counsel Don McGahn. But Vanity Fair found out that he’s chiefly enraged at the so-called “notetakers” — members of the administration, like Rob Porter, who took notes during meetings.
“The former officials Trump has vented about, sources told me, are a group known as ‘the notetakers’ that includes former White House counsel Don McGahn, McGahn’s deputy Annie Donaldson, and staff secretary Rob Porter,” Sherman writes. ‘“The thing that pisses him off is the note-taking,”’ a former West Wing official interviewed by Mueller told me. “Trump thinks they could have cooperated with Mueller without all the note-taking.”’
Sherman also noted that there might be more bad news for the White House.
‘”Another vector fueling anxiety in Trumpworld is the shoes that have yet to drop, including the 12 criminal referrals mentioned in the report,”‘ Sherman writes. ‘“What are these 12 that we don’t know about? They will not be good,” said another Republican close to the White House.”‘
