white house

The president’s aides have prepared an extensive spin operation ahead of Thursday’s release.

When the Mueller report crashes into a Washington feverish with anticipation on Thursday, the White House hopes to show President Donald Trump busy doing his job — and far away from a phone-sized keyboard.

Trump typically spends the first half of his workday in the White House residence in “executive time” — making phone calls, reading news reports, keeping an eye on the TV and talking to top officials.

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That’s exactly when the Department of Justice is expected to release Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s long-awaited report, and when the free-wheeling Twitterer-in-chief is likely to have the least amount of supervision.

So on Thursday, the president’s hands will not be idle: Trump and the first lady will host an event for wounded warriors before he meets with the secretary of state and then departs for a long Easter weekend at Mar-a-Lago, according to his public schedule and a Federal Aviation Administration notice.

The goal for Thursday is to use the bully pulpit of the White House to give the appearance of a president consumed by the demands of his office. Former President Bill Clinton often leaned on the same playbook at key moments during the Starr investigation – a historical example Trump’s lawyers have studied closely.

Meanwhile, a well-greased spin machine will start whirring to life at the two main arms of the president’s re-election effort — the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign, aiming to shape perceptions of Mueller’s findings in his favor.

“The White House’s intent is to brush this off and move on as quickly as possible,” said one Republican close to the White House. “That is the approach the White House counsel will want the president to take — though it is up the president to do it,” the same Republican added. A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Aside from the uncertainty of what’s in the report itself, there’s a second major wild card: Trump.

What could trigger the president is any hint in the Mueller report that one of his current and former aides, many of whom cooperated with the investigation at the direction of then-White House lawyer Ty Cobb, gave evidence or recounted conversations that somehow embarrasses Trump or his family members.

“They went in and told the truth and are now wondering how much will be in the report. How much will it be redacted, and how will that play?” said one former administration official, noting that Attorney General William Barr’s letter summarizing Mueller’s findings could prove more favorable to the White House than the report itself.

“What you got in the four-page memo was top-line conclusions that sounded definitive on collusion, but White House officials think the actual report will be less conclusive,” the former official added.

Mueller’s team talked to a raft of Trump aides including former chief-of-staff Reince Priebus, former senior strategist Steve Bannon, former top attorney Don McGahn, former attorney general Jeff Sessions and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, among others. McGahn alone sat reportedly sat with the special investigators’ team for 30 hours of interviews.

“It is an important thing to the president that these people are not out seen as out there in the report attacking him personally,” said the close White House adviser.

McGahn’s tenure in the White House ended in a deeply broken relationship between the White House counsel and the president. McGahn was frustrated by the frequency of president’s angry outbursts, causing him to nickname the commander-in-chief, “King Kong,” and Trump felt equally frustrated that the White House’s top attorney did not do more to shield him personally, or stop the special investigation.

Since McGahn left in October 2018, Trump has continued to complain about him with some frequency, fuming over the various ways he feels McGahn failed him, according to the close White House adviser.

McGahn and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment.

No one in the White House has seen the full document yet, nor do they know how it handles the question of whether Trump obstructed justice in firing former FBI Director James Comey — or the nuances surrounding that and many other moments.

Barr’s letter noted only that Mueller had declined to recommend charges on obstruction, quoting the special counsel’s report as saying: “[W]hile this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

But reports soon dribbled out relaying the views of frustrated members of Mueller’s team, rare leaks revealing that some in the special counsel’s office saw Barr’s synopsis of their “principal conclusions” as misleading.

Inside the White House, aides are trying to project calm. Most of this week has felt like a waiting game, especially with Congress on recess and with many administration officials planning a short work-week given this weekend’s Easter and Passover holidays.

There is also a feeling that Barr’s spare summary set the public narrative early on that Trump did not collude with Russia during the 2016 election – and White House officials and the president’s allies hope that perception sticks despite whatever damaging details may be lurking in the full report.

On Thursday, White House officials including lead attorney Emmet Flood are expected to have a limited window of time to read and digest the key parts of report. One of the president’s outside attorneys, Jay Sekulow, told POLITICO that his plan is to have a team of five to six staffers to review the document as the president’s personal counsel, breaking up the report into sections and monitoring the public response to it. Flood and the White House’s top attorney Pat Cipollone are expected to then brief the president on the report’s findings.

Sekulow and the president’s other attorney, Rudy Giuliani, are expected to go on television extensively this weekend to defend the president, Sekulow told POLITICO. Sekulow said the goal was to follow a similar model to how they handled the Sunday Barr letter, where they were able to get out a statement and tee up media interviews within an hour.

Trump’s attorneys will also be wielding a “countereport” pushing back on Mueller’s findings, which Giuliani said earlier this week had been whittled down to “34 or 35 pages.”

The Republican National Committee will play a leading role in pushing back on any potentially damaging tidbits, or Democrats’ statements. The RNC will rely on a war room to monitor the media coverage and political statements including a rapid response team, social media pushback and op-eds and TV appearances from top RNC communications officials.

The Trump campaign is also ready to defend the president and then direct the public’s attention elsewhere.

“We know that President Trump will — once again — be vindicated: no collusion and no obstruction. The tables should turn now, as it is time to investigate the liars who instigated the sham investigation in the first place,” said Tim Murtaugh, communications director for the campaign.

But as always, Trump will act as his own communications director and public relations crisis manager. Already he’s distilled the message down to a simple Twitter statement, before he’s seen the report: “No Collusion – No Obstruction!”

Eliana Johnson and Darren Samuelsohn contributed reporting.

congress

The senior House Republican is quietly breaking with the president.

Greg Walden is trying to find his own way in Donald Trump’s party.

Walden, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and former chief of the House GOP campaign arm, has broken ranks with Trump on a number of high-profile votes this year — rebuking the president on his signature border wall, backing Russia sanctions and voting with Democrats to end the historic 35-day government shutdown.

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Facing a changing state back home and a new era of divided government in Washington, the Oregon Republican has been joining with a handful of his more moderate GOP colleagues to quietly cross the aisle and vote with the Democratic majority. But Walden isn’t ostentatious about his splits with the president, and in the Trump era, he can’t go rogue too much if he wants a future in the GOP.

The 62-year-old congressman has his sights on reclaiming the Energy and Commerce gavel for another term should Republicans take back the House next year, and he’s not eager to hurt his chances of being elected chairman or serving elsewhere in leadership.

“I’m a chairman in exile, dude,” the mild-mannered Walden insisted in an interview with POLITICO. “I’ve got two more years as chairman. That’s my focus.”

Yet Walden needs to win reelection, which could be more challenging in his sprawling, rural district in eastern and central Oregon.

“It sure as heck ain’t getting any redder,” said Walden, a lifelong Oregonian whose ancestors came to the state by wagon train in 1845. His district is the only one in the state that is held by a Republican.

Walden does not appear to be in immediate danger. He won reelection by 17 points in November, a comfortable margin in a bad year for the GOP yet much smaller than his previous wins. Trump carried the district by 21 points in 2016.

Since arriving in Washington two decades ago, Walden — a former radio station owner with a booming voice — has earned a reputation for his loyalty to the party.

Walden helped lead the House GOP in back-to-back victories as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2014 and 2016. He also served as chairman of the Republican leadership under then-Speaker John Boehner of Ohio in 2010. And at the request of GOP leaders, he even briefly gave up his coveted seat on Energy and Commerce for another member.

Walden also played a major role in trying to repeal Obamacare, which led to Democrats back home lining up to race against him in 2018.

So Walden‘s occasional resistance to Trump this year has surprised some congressional observers, sparking speculation that Walden might be heading for the exits or eyeing a lucrative post-congressional career on K Street.

But Walden swatted down the idea he was considering leaving Congress to cash in or run for statewide office. He said there is simply much less pressure to toe the party line in the minority, which has given him more freedom to vote his district — and conscience.

“At the end of the day, we don’t own your voting card,” Walden said of party leaders. “And you need to vote your district, too.”

“I think what upsets leadership is when you surprise them and they don’t see it coming,” Walden added.

The Oregon Republican is well respected by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle, who describe him as both a savvy politician and serious legislator who likes to dig into the nitty-gritty policy details. They also think Walden is growing more comfortable with standing up to Trump as he picks and chooses his battles.

“He’s in a different role now as ranking member. He doesn’t have to be held hostage,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who also served with Walden’s late father in the state Legislature. “He was on the partisan track and he was pretty good at it. He can be partisan when he wants to or thinks he needs to, but I do think that by nature, he is a little less hard-edged.”

Walden maintains that he hasn’t gotten any flak from GOP leadership for crossing party lines, but says he did get “beat up from the base” back home for his votes on the border wall. Walden supported a resolution to kill the president’s national emergency declaration to build the wall and then voted to override Trump’s veto of the measure.

While he did fear a public lashing from the president, Walden also says the vote was a no-brainer for him, citing the dangerous precedent of allowing the president to circumvent Congress‘ power of the purse. And Walden pointed out that, since there wasn’t enough support on Capitol Hill to ultimately overturn the veto, he had more leeway to cast his vote however he wanted.

“I’m sympathetic to what the president is trying to do” on border security, Walden said. “But … in my heart of hearts, I took an oath to uphold the Constitution.”

Walden parted with Republicans to back a series of spending bills to reopen the government during the painful, 35-day shutdown — another easy decision for Walden, who represents scores of federal employees who work for the Bureau of Land Management in his farm-heavy district.

The Oregon lawmaker also supported a resolution disapproving of the Trump administration’s decision to lift sanctions on three Russian companies and backed Democratic legislation to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, which contained new gun provisions and transgender protections that repelled most Republicans.

“It may not be perfect … I know it’s a process,” Walden said. “I was willing to lean forward and vote for VAWA.”

At the same time, Walden has fallen in line on other big votes where some of his moderate colleagues broke ranks. He voted against landmark gun control legislation, a bill to close the gender wage gap and a resolution condemning the Trump administration for supporting a lawsuit gutting Obamacare.

But while Walden has voted with Trump 92 percent of the time overall, he has been in lockstep with Trump for only 59 percent of the time this year, according to FiveThirtyEight.

That could help build some good will with Democrats as Walden tries to tackle prescription drug pricing, one of his top priorities on the Energy and Commerce Committee, or, perhaps climate change.

Walden has has become more vocal about addressing climate change in recent years — another departure from Trump and the GOP — and says the parties can find common ground on the issue. He recently wrote an op-ed with Republican Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan and John Shimkus of Illinois outlining some of their ideas.

Still, Walden has repeatedly criticized progressives’ “Green New Deal” and backs GOP calls to hold a vote on the plan in a bid to expose Democratic divisions.

“We fight where we have to fight. But we came here to work,” Walden said. “That‘s been my M.O.”