Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com Slash Podcasts. From a White
Speaker 1: House Council Domagan plays a prominent role in the Mueller Report.
Speaker 1: He may have saved President Trump from himself in refusing
Speaker 1: to take any step to remove Robert Mueller as Special
Speaker 1: counsel despite directives from the President. Here to tell us
Speaker 1: more is Gregg Farrell, Bloomberg News legal reporter. Greg Would
Speaker 1: you say that McGann played one of the most significant
Speaker 1: roles in the Muller Report Volume two? Um? Yet, Juna,
Speaker 1: I'd say he would. He did. Um. He was at
Speaker 1: the center of the President's many attempts to get rid
Speaker 1: of Muller, And as we read over and over again
Speaker 1: throughout that four page report, he declined didn't follow up.
Speaker 1: Didn't you know, I just didn't follow up in that directive.
Speaker 1: So I think he saved Trump from what would have
Speaker 1: been an action that clearly would have pushed this from
Speaker 1: a judgment call on obstruction into an actionable crime. So
Speaker 1: many legal experts have been crediting the fact that President
Speaker 1: Trump did not testify and wasn't even subpoenaed to a
Speaker 1: legal strategy by his defense team. What role did McGann
Speaker 1: play in that strategy, Well, UMU, as our reporting a
Speaker 1: show going back, UM, I don't think McGann favored that originally,
Speaker 1: but once the plan was set in place and he
Speaker 1: bought into it. Uh, that combined with his own willingness
Speaker 1: to testify quite openly and thoroughly with you know, corroborating
Speaker 1: evidence of contemporaneous notes, ended up you know, being a
Speaker 1: big benefit to the president also, uh in terms of
Speaker 1: you know, basically cooperating. That's uh, rather than forcing you know,
Speaker 1: Mueller to go to court to try to extract either
Speaker 1: you know, uh you have some things that could have
Speaker 1: been questionably claimed as executive privilege. I think it kept
Speaker 1: the presidential powers from being constrained by any negative court rulings.
Speaker 1: So that was another aspect of the strategy, was not
Speaker 1: to go to war. The president's legal team with with Mueller,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure they had their own very distinct wanting
Speaker 1: to defend Donald Trump goal. But another after effect of
Speaker 1: that is that presidential powers were not basically defined or
Speaker 1: clipped by any kind of averse Court decision. Will presidential
Speaker 1: powers if the House goes through in any number of
Speaker 1: committees with trying to subpoena the report, Will that take
Speaker 1: into account presidential powers in any respect? No right. And
Speaker 1: initially it seems to be it's going to be a
Speaker 1: battle over getting the report the full court. Nothing but
Speaker 1: the report, if you will, just everything that's including the
Speaker 1: redacted stuff. Um. And and that's step one. That's a
Speaker 1: that's a different battle. Now we're already seeing this is
Speaker 1: a separate event. But we're already seeing today that the
Speaker 1: House committees that have wanted to subpoena the president's basically
Speaker 1: his his tax accountants. Um. You know, the president plans
Speaker 1: to fight that, So that will be a battle. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not sure if that's going to fall
Speaker 1: under the category of presidential power. I think it would,
Speaker 1: So I think about it like that, which is now
Speaker 1: separate from Mueller, between Congress and the President will go
Speaker 1: down that road of you know, leading to basically to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, where the Supreme Court is going to
Speaker 1: have to weigh in on whether or not Congress, you know,
Speaker 1: Congressional committee. Uh. Subpoena can basically force the president to
Speaker 1: divulge his personal financial records from his pre presidential time.
Speaker 1: So Greg does does mcgant have the same expansive view
Speaker 1: of president show power that the Attorney General William Barr
Speaker 1: has that unitary executive idea? Yes, that's our reading of this.
Speaker 1: Bar comes came of age during the Reagan administration where
Speaker 1: he worked, and that was a big push. Uh. And
Speaker 1: one of the fellows we quoted, the professor about presidential power.
Speaker 1: He was tutored by ed Meath. Ed Meae explained to
Speaker 1: him how the whole process during the Reagan administration was
Speaker 1: to restore a lot of the powers of the presidency
Speaker 1: that had been stripped away after Watergate. McGann is a
Speaker 1: bit younger by more than a decade, so he did
Speaker 1: not come of age in the Reagan administration. But it's
Speaker 1: clear we used this quote in the story. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: clear that he admired, you know, the direction in which
Speaker 1: they were going, and particularly Judge Robert Bork. And as
Speaker 1: he said, uh, you know, he he aspired to be
Speaker 1: you know, Judge Robert Bork, not Saturday Night Massacre Bork,
Speaker 1: which is an interesting insight into you know these you know,
Speaker 1: the reasons why he didn't um push your head was
Speaker 1: getting rid of moment and uh so that's consistent with that.
Speaker 1: So the report, there's a lot of legal theory in
Speaker 1: the report explaining of legal theories, and they took a
Speaker 1: different view, I believe, of the unitary executive idea than
Speaker 1: than bar and McGann have correct. So the the notion
Speaker 1: um first of all, the notion that a sitting president
Speaker 1: cannot be indicted. Uh, you know, Mueller's team contested that
Speaker 1: is that they did not accept that. They gave a
Speaker 1: very interesting reasoning for why they decided not to pursue
Speaker 1: an obstruction guard charge against the president and to stand
Speaker 1: down in that they did not want to basically put
Speaker 1: the president in a position where he could not access
Speaker 1: the court system and defend himself, as every one of
Speaker 1: us has that right if we're accused of a crime.
Speaker 1: So that was an interesting it was decision making and
Speaker 1: legal theory as to why not to pursue that. And
Speaker 1: it's for or as the unitary executive. Did they take
Speaker 1: that on head on? Um? Not head on? But I
Speaker 1: think it's fair to read between the lines and UH
Speaker 1: that that they do not subscribe to that. Um that
Speaker 1: you know, they felt they could have subpoena them, but
Speaker 1: they chose not to. So I think that's that's by
Speaker 1: they avoided a battle over this by not you know,
Speaker 1: by decided not to subpoena to the president and forced
Speaker 1: this testimony. UM. I don't think. I think you know,
Speaker 1: the Mueller team's legal reasoning, uh is not consistent with
Speaker 1: the unitary executive theory. But at the same time, Mueller,
Speaker 1: unlike Jim Comey, I think, was not willing to go
Speaker 1: beyond what the very narrow confines of his scope work.
Speaker 1: He did not want to make himself for his legal
Speaker 1: reasoning the center of the story, if you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, I do. Greg, great, great article too, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. The article is presidential power gets the
Speaker 1: booster shot, no matter Mueller's view. And that's Greg Barrell.
Speaker 1: He's a Bloomberg News Lee Will reporter. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen
Speaker 1: to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud and on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg