WASHINGTON — Former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on Sunday disputed reports that President Trump sought to fire special counsel Robert Mueller last summer.
“Of all the things that we went through in the West Wing, I never felt that the president was going to fire the special counsel,” Priebus said on Sunday’s “Meet The Press” during his first interview since his last day working at the White House last summer.
The Washington Post reported last month that Priebus, along with then-White House strategist Steve Bannon, grew increasingly concerned back in June that Trump would fire Mueller, and “backed off” only when White House Counsel Don McGahn threatened to resign.
“I would know the difference between a level 10 situation as reported in that story and what was reality, and to me that wasn’t reality,” Priebus said.
“I think it was very clear by the president’s own words that he was concerned about the conflicts of interest that he felt that the special counsel had and that he made that very clear,” Priebus said. “Perhaps someone interpreted that to mean something else but I know the difference between, ‘fire that person, why isn’t that person gone,’ to what I read.”
The former chief of staff also defended President Trump from allegations that he has obstructed justice, saying he “never felt that there was some kind of collusion or some kind of obstruction situation going on at all in the West Wing.”