Note taking by lawyers, something we, particularly laymen, never really think about, is probably now part of our country’s partisan divide, having come to the forefront thanks to President Trump. For Trump supporters, a former attorney for the presidency (and, we should be reminded, not the president himself) who took notes while sitting in the Oval Office with the president was, in the president’s phrase, a “bastard” out to get him. For “Never-Trumpers,” such a lawyer—in the person of White House Counsel Donald McGahn—was a dutiful safety net in place to ensure that the president didn’t take a suicidal fall of “obstruction” in directing McGahn, as McGahn recalls it, to outright fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Firing Mueller being a bridge too far for McGahn.
The president, of course, never keeps his thoughts to himself. So watching McGahn “create a record” (as Mueller describes it), which McGahn told Trump was “a good thing” and what “real lawyers” do, Trump couldn’t resist calling McGahn out to his face. After all, he obviously saw McGahn as engaged in “self-protection,” should McGahn be called upon by some investigator (as was later the case with Mueller) to defend his own conduct. Unsurprisingly, in response, Trump invoked his paradigm for what a good lawyer should be—Roy Cohn. “I’ve had a lot of great lawyers, like Roy Cohn. He did not take notes.” (Mueller Report, Vol. II, p. 117).
