McGahn in the Oval Office with only the Chief of Staff present and tried to get McGahn to say that the President never ordered him to fire the Special Counsel. McGahn refused and insisted his memory of the President’s direction to remove the Special Counsel was accurate. In that same meeting, the President challenged McGahn for taking notes of his discussions with the President and asked why he had told Special Counsel investigators that he had been directed to have the Special Counsel removed. Evidence 1. The Press Reports that the President Tried to Fire the Special Counsel On January 25, 2018, the New York Times reported that in June 2017, the President had ordered McGahn to have the Department of Justice fire the Special 777 Counsel. According to the article, “[a]mid the first wave of news media reports that Mr. Mueller was examining a possible obstruction case, the president began to argue that Mr. Mueller had three conflicts of interest that disqualified 778 him from overseeing the investigation.” The article further reported that “[a]fter receiving the President’s order to fire Mr. Mueller, the White House counsel . . . refused to ask the Justice Department to dismiss the special counsel, 779 saying he would quit instead.” The article stated that the president “ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign 780 rather than carry out the directive.” After the article was published, the President dismissed the story when asked about it by reporters, saying, “Fake 781 news, folks. Fake news. A typical New York Times fake story.” The next day, the Washington Post reported on the same event but added that McGahn had not told the President directly that he intended to resign rather 782 than carry out the directive to have the Special Counsel terminated. In that respect, the Post story clarified the Times story, which could be read to suggest that McGahn had told the President of his intention to quit, causing the President 783 to back down from the order to have the Special Counsel fired. 2. The President Seeks to Have McGahn Dispute the Press Reports On January 26, 2018, the President’s personal counsel called McGahn’s attorney and said that the President wanted McGahn to put out a statement