A new book from reporters Peter Baker and Susan Glasser claims that former President Donald Trump offered the job of attorney general to two different cabinet secretaries with the expectation that they would then fire special counsel Robert Mueller.
The Independent, which has obtained a copy of Baker and Glasser's book, reports that Trump tried to recruit then-Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt and Labor Secretary Alex Acosta to take over from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had enraged Trump by recusing himself from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Of the two men, Pruitt seemed the most open to the idea, and Baker and Glasser report that he “raised no concerns about participating in a plot to get rid of an attorney general and seize hold himself of the politically fraught investigation of the president."
Ultimately, write the authors, Trump did not go through with the plot after his aides succeeded in convincing him that ousting Sessions and firing Mueller would only make matters worse for him.The Independent, which has obtained a copy of Baker and Glasser's book, reports that Trump tried to recruit then-Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt and Labor Secretary Alex Acosta to take over from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had enraged Trump by recusing himself from the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Of the two men, Pruitt seemed the most open to the idea, and Baker and Glasser report that he “raised no concerns about participating in a plot to get rid of an attorney general and seize hold himself of the politically fraught investigation of the president."
Ultimately, write the authors, Trump did not go through with the plot after his aides succeeded in convincing him that ousting Sessions and firing Mueller would only make matters worse for him.
This was not the only time Trump tried to get Mueller fired.
In fact, Trump's attempt to recruit Pruitt and Acosta as attorney general only came after he ordered White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller, only to be rebuffed.
Mueller's final report on his investigation documented Trump's attempt to fire him as one of several instances of potential obstruction of justice.