Ex-Ethics chief slams McGahn over report he pushed Sessions not to recuse

Walter Shaub, former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, slammed White House Counsel Don McGahn on Thursday over a report that McGahn lobbied Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself in the probe into Russia’s election interference.

Shaub took to Twitter to weigh in on The New York Times’s report, which claimed McGahn heeded President Trump’s orders and lobbied Sessions to remain at the helm of the probe. Sessions’s recusal led to the appointment of Robert Mueller as the Justice Department’s special counsel.

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“This story infuriates me. I am outraged by McGahn undermining the rule of law in the country I love. While McGahn was demanding Sessions’ (sic) break the law, I was on the other line with DOJ demanding Sessions recuse. What I think of your attack on America, McGahn, isn’t fit to print,” Shaub tweeted.

This story infuriates me. I am outraged by McGahn undermining the rule of law in the country I love. While McGahn was demanding Sessions’ break the law, I was on the other line with DOJ demanding Sessions recuse. What I think of your attack on America, McGahn, isn’t fit to print. https://t.co/JgHgPKR0PA

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) January 4, 2018

The New York Times reported Thursday that Trump ordered McGahn to ask Sessions not to recuse himself, believing that his top law enforcement official would protect him from the inquiry.

The move was unsuccessful, and Sessions recused himself. Sessions’s deputy, Rod Rosenstein, later appointed the special counsel to investigate Trump campaign associates’ ties to Russia.

“Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Trump reportedly asked McGahn, referring to his former personal lawyer and fixer who previously worked for Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.).

Shaub is a frequent critic of Trump on Twitter over the administration’s perceived conflicts of interests and ethics issues.

Last month, Shaub said that Trump’s tweet that he knew former national security adviser Michael Flynn had lied to the FBI could have “ended” a presidency in past times.

“Are you ADMITTING you knew Flynn had lied to to the FBI when you asked Comey to back off Flynn?” Shaub tweeted in December.

“Before we slipped into an alternate universe of unabashed corruption, this tweet alone might have ended a Presidential administration,” he added.