WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that White House counsel Donald McGahn, who has been serving since the beginning of the administration in 2017, will step down in the coming weeks.
The president said in a tweet that McGahn will leave after the confirmation vote for his second Supreme Court nominee, Brett M. Kavanaugh. McGahn has played a key role in Trump's effort to nominate judges and reshape the nation's judiciary.
But tensions between Trump and McGahn have been growing. The New York Times reported recently that McGahn had spent 30 hours with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is leading the probe into whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russians and whether Trump intervened to obstruct that investigation.
The tweet confirms reporting from the website Axios, which was based on anonymous sources. Trump also tweeted on Wednesday that such sources should not be trusted.
Veteran attorney Emmet Flood, who joined the White House legal team earlier this year, is the likely replacement for McGahn, according to two administration sources.
Flood, who has served in two prior administrations, defended President Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal in the late 1990s.
