
White House correspondent April Ryan told CNN on the night of June 12, 2017 that the White House was in "mass hysteria" with staffers fearing President Donald Trump was about to fire special counsel Robert Mueller.
Thursday night, The New York Times reported senior staffers corroborated that story to Mueller's team that Trump wanted to fire the special counsel. It was White House counsel Don McGahn who stopped it by saying that if Trump did it he would resign. Trump didn't fire Mueller after all. Months later, he even denied ever thinking about it.
Here's what Ryan had to say seven months ago.
“One of my sources reached out to me right before we went on air and they said there’s mass hysteria in the West Wing about this,” Ryan explained “We don’t know if it’s going to happen or if it won’t happen, but what we do know: if indeed the president does fire Mueller, it shows that he’s impeding the process again.”
Ryan argued Mueller must be allowed to carry on his investigation “because of what [Trump] did with Comey,” referring to the president’s decision to fire the former FBI director over the Russia investigation.
“There’s a lot of smoke and there’s a lot of alarm bells going off,” Ryan continued. “The question is, where’s the fire.”
Ryan noted if Trump decided to fire Mueller, it would be a “big problem for him politically.”
Watch the video below:
April Ryan on the potential of Mueller firing. "Mass hysteria in the West Wing about this" https://t.co/criOQmSPmF— This Is Not Normal🍦 (@This Is Not Normal🍦) 1497311014.0