800 doesn’t write a letter, then maybe I’ll have to get rid of him.” Later that day, Porter spoke to McGahn to deliver the President’s 801 message. Porter told McGahn that he had to write a letter to dispute that he 802 was ever ordered to terminate the Special Counsel. McGahn shrugged off the 803 request, explaining that the media reports were true. McGahn told Porter that the President had been insistent on firing the Special Counsel and that McGahn had planned to resign rather than carry out the order, although he had not 804 personally told the President he intended to quit. Porter told McGahn that the 805 President suggested that McGahn would be fired if he did not write the letter. McGahn dismissed the threat, saying that the optics would be terrible if the 806 President followed through with firing him on that basis. McGahn said he 807 would not write the letter the President had requested. Porter said that to his knowledge the issue of McGahn’s letter never came up with the President again, 808 but Porter did recall telling Kelly about his conversation with McGahn. The next day, on February 6, 2018, Kelly scheduled time for McGahn to meet with him and the President in the Oval Office to discuss the Times 809 article. The morning of the meeting, the President’s personal counsel called McGahn’s attorney and said that the President was going to be speaking with McGahn and McGahn could not resign no matter what happened in the meeting. 810 The President began the Oval Office meeting by telling McGahn that the 811 New York Times story did not “look good” and McGahn needed to correct it. McGahn recalled the President said, “I never said to fire Mueller. I never said ‘fire.’ This story doesn’t look good. You need to correct this. You’re the White 812 House counsel.” In response, McGahn acknowledged that he had not told the President directly that he planned to resign, but said that the story was otherwise 813 814 accurate. The President asked McGahn, “Did I say the word ‘fire’?” McGahn responded, “What you said is, ‘Call Rod [Rosenstein], tell Rod that 815 Mueller has conflicts and can’t be the Special Counsel. ’” The President 816 responded, “I never said that.” The President said he merely wanted McGahn