美国国家公共电台 NPR 'The Quiet Man': The Powerful Conservative White House Lawyer In The Middle Of It All

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Fairly or unfairly, the specter of the Watergate scandal increasingly hangs over the Trump¹ administration. The parallels have been spurred by a drumbeat of events, among them the firing of the FBI director, the apparent attempt to enlist² top intelligence officials to quash the Russia investigation³ and even the suggestion of taping in the White House. With a special counsel now investigating, NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports on the man in the middle of it all, White House counsel Don McGahn.

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE⁴: Forty-eight-year-old Don McGahn was in grade school when the Watergate scandal unfolded, sending top White House aides to jail and forcing President Nixon out of office. McGahn would grow up to be something of a split personality, half a shaggy-haired and accomplished⁵ guitar-playing rocker in a cover band and, at the same time, a partner in a straitlaced law firm, where he became an expert in poking⁶ loopholes in the campaign finance laws that were enacted⁷ in the wake of Watergate. A libertarian, he made his political bones as chairman of the Federal Election Commission, where he led the successful GOP effort to undermine disclosure requirements and foil most limits on campaign money raising.

A New Jersey⁸ native, his link to Donald Trump seems to have come through a politically connected uncle in Atlantic City who helped Trump establish and maintain his casinos there for more than a decade. Last summer, McGahn became the Trump campaign's general counsel. And after the election, he was named White House counsel, a position that puts him at the center of just about every legal and ethical⁹ controversy¹⁰ that concerns the president. And these days, that is not the most comfortable position to be in.

FRED WERTHEIMER: The great baseball player Yogi Berra once said, it's deja vu all over again.

TOTENBERG: Government ethics¹¹ watchdog Fred Wertheimer is president of Democracy 21, an organization that works on government integrity, accountability and transparency issues.

WERTHEIMER: The smoking gun in the Watergate scandals was a White House tape in which President Nixon was caught laying out a plan to get the CIA to intervene with the FBI to block an FBI investigation. Here, President Trump has gotten dangerously close to the line of doing the same thing.

TOTENBERG: Indeed, at a Senate hearing last month, a clearly uncomfortable director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, refused to comment on news reports that the president tried to enlist him and the head of the National Security Agency in getting the FBI to shut down the Russia investigation. Senator Richard Blumenthal pressed the issue, asking Coats if he'd discussed the matter with the NSA chief, prompting an eight-second silence, followed by this.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DAN COATS: That is - that is something that I - would like to withhold¹² that question at this particular point in time.

TOTENBERG: Two weeks earlier, former acting¹³ Attorney General Sally Yates testified that she warned the White House counsel less than a week after President Trump was sworn in that Trump's national security adviser¹⁴, Michael Flynn, was subject to blackmail¹⁵ by the Russians. She said she told White House counsel McGahn that the Justice Department had evidence Flynn had lied to the vice¹⁶ president when he denied having discussions last December with the Russian ambassador about sanctions that were then in place under the Obama administration.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SALLY YATES: One of the questions that Mr. McGahn asked me was essentially¹⁷, why does it matter to DOJ if one White House official lies to another White House official? And so we explained to him, to state the obvious, you don't want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians.

TOTENBERG: Despite the warning, Flynn wasn't fired until 18 days later. After Yates testified, however, President Trump fired FBI Director Comey. The president ultimately admitted he did it because of his dissatisfaction with the Russia probe and not, as the White House had originally claimed, because of Comey's conduct of the Clinton email investigation.

WERTHEIMER: The job of the White House counsel is, in part, to prevent and protect the president from getting into these dangerous situations.

TOTENBERG: Again, Fred Wertheimer.

WERTHEIMER: Now, one of two things is happening here. Either the White House counsel is out of the loop and doesn't know when these things are happening, or the White House counsel does know, and he either isn't trying to prevent it or can't prevent it.

TOTENBERG: Indeed, counsel McGahn's friends and associates say he's grown increasingly uneasy about his role and was relieved when President Trump hired a private lawyer to represent him in the ongoing¹⁸ investigations¹⁹. McGahn knows that the White House counsel's office today is a very different animal from what it was in the early 1970s, at the time of the Watergate scandal.

Back then, the White House counsel's job was not nearly as important as it is today. There were just three lawyers in the office. Today, there are over 30. But most importantly, back then, there were no clear lines about the role of the White House counsel.

JOHN DEAN: During Watergate, I wasn't sure who my client was. Nixon thought I was his private lawyer as well as some kind of White House lawyer.

TOTENBERG: John Dean, President Nixon's White House counsel, went to jail in the Watergate scandal. He notes that in the aftermath, the American Bar Association enacted a new code of ethics making clear that the counsel to the president represents the institution of the presidency²⁰, not the president personally.

DEAN: He needs to be aware of what's going on so he can protect the office. And he should ask for that information.

TOTENBERG: But Dean observes there is no lawyer-client privilege requiring the White House counsel to keep secret anything he learns about personal wrongdoing. Indeed, he or she has an obligation to disclose misconduct. McGahn's allies say he is fully²¹ able to thread the narrow eye of that needle. Leonard Leo of the conservative Federalist Society has worked closely with McGahn over the last year.

LEONARD LEO: Sometimes, you're just going to have to make seat-of-the-pants determinations and judgments²². Don does, I think, as good a job of that as any White House counsel has.

TOTENBERG: Boyden Gray served as White House counsel to President George H. W. Bush.

BOYDEN GRAY: I would say he's doing, I think, a pretty good job in the circumstances that he's inherited, with a White House that has a White House staff and many Cabinet who've never had an experience in government.

TOTENBERG: But John Dean has a warning.

DEAN: I saw in Watergate not only myself but others get across the line out of pure carelessness. And then, once across the line and realizing the problem, there was a doubling down, trying to make it work, which was even more foolish.

TOTENBERG: Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 enlist   

vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍

参考例句：

• They come here to enlist men for the army.他们来这儿是为了召兵。
• The conference will make further efforts to enlist the support of the international community for their just struggle. 会议必将进一步动员国际社会，支持他们的正义斗争。

3 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 accomplished   

adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的

参考例句：

• Thanks to your help,we accomplished the task ahead of schedule.亏得你们帮忙,我们才提前完成了任务。
• Removal of excess heat is accomplished by means of a radiator.通过散热器完成多余热量的排出。

6 poking   

n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• He was poking at the rubbish with his stick. 他正用手杖拨动垃圾。
• He spent his weekends poking around dusty old bookshops. 他周末都泡在布满尘埃的旧书店里。

7 enacted   

制定（法律），通过（法案）( enact的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• legislation enacted by parliament 由议会通过的法律
• Outside in the little lobby another scene was begin enacted. 外面的小休息室里又是另一番景象。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

8 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

9 ethical   

adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的

参考例句：

• It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
• It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。

10 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

11 ethics   

n.伦理学；伦理观，道德标准

参考例句：

• The ethics of his profession don't permit him to do that.他的职业道德不允许他那样做。
• Personal ethics and professional ethics sometimes conflict.个人道德和职业道德有时会相互抵触。

12 withhold   

v.拒绝，不给；使停止，阻挡

参考例句：

• It was unscrupulous of their lawyer to withhold evidence.他们的律师隐瞒证据是不道德的。
• I couldn't withhold giving some loose to my indignation.我忍不住要发泄一点我的愤怒。

13 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

14 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

15 blackmail   

n.讹诈，敲诈，勒索，胁迫，恫吓

参考例句：

• She demanded ＄1000 blackmail from him.她向他敲诈了1000美元。
• The journalist used blackmail to make the lawyer give him the documents.记者讹诈那名律师交给他文件。

16 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

17 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

18 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。

19 investigations   

（正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究

参考例句：

• His investigations were intensive and thorough but revealed nothing. 他进行了深入彻底的调查，但没有发现什么。
• He often sent them out to make investigations. 他常常派他们出去作调查。

20 presidency   

n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期)

参考例句：

• Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency of the United States.罗斯福连续当选四届美国总统。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency.两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。

21 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

22 judgments   

判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判

参考例句：

• A peculiar austerity marked his judgments of modern life. 他对现代生活的批评带着一种特殊的苛刻。
• He is swift with his judgments. 他判断迅速。