Page:CTRL0000034600 - Transcribed Interview of Richard Peter Donoghue, (Oct. 1, 2021).pdf/129

129 I think the President really didn't announce his final decision until probably about the last 15 minutes of the meeting.

Uh-huh.

But somewhere in the middle of the meeting someone mentioned Atlanta, and the President said, "Oh, yeah, Atlanta, Atlanta." And then he picked up a piece of paper that was on his desk, and he started waving it. And he said, "No wonder nothing's been found in Atlanta, because the U.S. attorney there is a Never Trumper."

And I had no idea what he was talking about. I said, you know, "Mr. President, I don't know what you mean." And then he had this piece of paper, and he read a quote from it that was purportedly from B.J. Pak, who was the U.S. attorney in Atlanta. It was critical of the President.

And I didn't know where this quote came from. I had no idea what he was talking about. But I just said, look, Mr. President, I don't even know what a Never Trumper is, but I'll tell you, all your U.S. attorneys were vetted, and I doubt B.J. said anything like that. But whatever it was, B.J. has been doing his job.

And he said, "No, no, no. He's a Never Trumper." He was very adamant about that at that point. "This guy is a Never Trumper. He should never have been in my administration to begin with. How did this guy end up in my administration?"

And then he said, "I want you to fire him," to me. I responded, "Mr. President, I'm not going to fire him. There's no reason to fire him." And he said, "Well, then I'm going to fire him." I said, "Well, you should just know, before you make that decision, that he told me a couple days ago he was submitting his resignation on Monday," which was the next day.

So, if you want to fire someone who's resigning—and then Pat Cipollone stepped in and said, "Well, that's ridiculous. The guy's resigning. We're not going to fire him."