The Trump administration is maintaining a defiant tone and attempting to block key officials from testifying before Congress. And that may extend to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, said White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders in an interview Tuesday.
The administration has already ordered former White House Counsel Don McGahn to ignore congressional subpoenas, and on ABC’s The Investigation, Sanders said Mueller may be next. During the podcast, Sanders said Mueller “should not testify.”
And while administration officials haven’t spoken to the Department of Justice about this just yet, she indicated a discussion within the White House about prohibiting Mueller from testifying is imminent, Mediaite reports.
“I think that’s a determination to be made at this point,” Sanders said. “[Trump’s tweets are] the President’s feeling on the matter and the reason is because we consider this as a case closed as a finished process.”
Sanders was quick to defend the Trump administration’s recalcitrance in complying with congressional oversight requests for more information, which, she added was “nothing more than a big dog-and-pony show.” But she also faced questions about her credibility since Mueller’s report revealed her admission that she fabricated information about President Donald Trump’s decision to fire FBI director James Comey.
“I feel very comfortable about my credibility — from the misspeak of one word versus the narrative that the media and Democrats have pushed for two years,” she said. “I feel extremely good about the job I have done…They have tried to put the President into a box that fits a story that they wanted to write. And every time they put words on the paper he changes them and he has controlled the narrative.”
But then ABC News’ Chris Vlasto got straight to the point about Trump’s habit of misstating facts, and as usual, Sanders defended him.
“Isn’t the story now about truth-telling?” he asked. “Isn’t that the problem? Not about you, but the president — isn’t that why people get so angry at him?”
Her response pushed the limits of credibility.
“I think they get so angry at him because he proves them wrong time and time again,” she said. “I think that they have tried to put the president into a box that fits a story they wanted to write. And any time they put words on the paper he changes them and he has controlled the narrative.”
Yes, Trump may control that narrative, but he creates many of his own. And his narratives are full of misinformation and sometimes cause real harm. That latest narrative may prevent Mueller’s testimony. And that would be a real tragedy.
Featured image by DonkeyHotey, license CC 2.0 via Flickr
