The New York Times has revealed that White House Counsel Donald McGahn met with Robert Mueller. In fact, he met with Mueller a lot — for three days, totaling thirty-plus hours over nine months.

Naturally the media were more than eager to find out what happened. Did McGahn spill some dirt Donald Trump? Did he finally blow open the lid on Russian collusion?

Solomon Wisenberg, a deputy independent counsel during the Whitewater investigation, told the Times that he would’ve loved to have had that level of cooperation from Bill Clinton’s lawyers:

“Oh my God, it would have been phenomenally helpful to us. It would have been like having the keys to the kingdom.”

The NYT also added that, “For a lawyer to share so much with investigators scrutinizing his client is unusual.”

So what did McGahn reveal to Robert Mueller?

Well, here’s a few tidbits:

• How Trump acted during the time that he fired FBI director James Comey.
• How the President wanted a loyalist in charge of the Russian inquiry, and wanted Attorney General Jeff Sessions in charge.
• That McGahn was instrumental in changing Trump’s mind about firing Robert Mueller.

Oh, and the Times added that McGahn sometimes calls Trump “King Kong” behind his back.

But, in the words of the classic Wendy’s commercial, Where’s the Beef?

One disappointed liberal blogger, hoping for more impeachable news, wrote:

“Over two thousand words and over a dozen sources, and Maggie and Mike never get around to explaining whether Don McGahn has any exposure in or provided testimony for the investigation in chief, the conspiracy with Russia to win the election.”

But, the media were not to be deterred. In fact, they reminded me of the story that President Reagan loved to tell about the little boy who climbed into a pile of horse manure and began scooping it out. When asked why he was doing it, the boy replied “With all this manure there must be a pony in here somewhere!”

So the media set out to find their pony. And what did they find?

Why, Don McGahn is worried about Trump throwing him under the bus! So he must be spilling his guts to Mueller!

Here’s what Vox used as its headline:

“White House Counsel Don McGann is worried Trump’s setting him up on obstruction — so he’s talking a lot to Mueller.” 

Splinter wrote:

“Everyone knows you can’t trust Donald Trump, but perhaps now, Donald Trump is realizing he can’t trust anyone, either.”

The guy from something called “The Palmer Report” is claiming that hot damn! he knew that Don McGahn was going to flip on Trump!

Palmer Report told you ten months ago that Don McGahn flipped on Donald Trump. Here’s how we knew. https://t.co/v4bJ2PDRgn

— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) August 19, 2018

And a reporter for MSNBC tweeted this:

Wild. NYT reports Don McGahn and his lawyer grew suspicious of Trump, thinking Trump wanted him to be the fall guy in the Russia probe. McGahn didn't want to be the next John Dean. So he fully cooperated, thinking it was the only way to protect himself. https://t.co/6qHUQzX3A6

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 18, 2018

Ah, yes, the specter of Watergate. The media are rubbing their hands gleefully, seeing Donald McGahn as another John Dean, who became a key witness in the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of Richard Nixon.

Dean discussed McGahn in Slate: 

“I think there is good reason for McGahn to believe that Trump would throw him under the bus, since Trump throws almost everyone under the bus. So, I don’t think it is a reach to have that in your consciousness. And the article does say that he and his lawyer, once they were told to go talk to the special counsel, indeed did so, and were relieved to be able to do so, to explain McGahn’s position and involvement in these things.”

Slate asked Dean if McGahn may have provided “damning evidence” (their fingers crossed):

“You can’t really tell. I don’t think he was motivated to provide damning evidence. I think he was explaining what he knew. He was a fact witness, and trying to explain the facts as he understood them.”

CNN also trotted Dean out in a phone interview:

So how did Don McGahn respond?

Here’s what his lawyer, William Burck, said in a statement:

“President Trump, through counsel, declined to assert any privilege over Mr. McGahn’s testimony, so Mr. McGahn answered the Special Counsel team’s questions fulsomely and honestly, as any person interviewed by federal investigators must.”

And what did Trump say about all this?

Here’s what he tweeted out late on Saturday:

I allowed White House Counsel Don McGahn, and all other requested members of the White House Staff, to fully cooperate with the Special Counsel. In addition we readily gave over one million pages of documents. Most transparent in history. No Collusion, No Obstruction. Witch Hunt!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 18, 2018

Has Don McGahn revealed anything that might prove that Trump colluded with Russians in order to win the election? It’s been a year-and-a-half since BuzzFeed dropped the Steele ‘dossier’ which launched the “Russia, Russia, Russia” media mania, and they still haven’t found anything. But even if the McGahn meetings don’t pan out for the media, I’m sure they’ll still dig through whatever crap they can. After all, they might find their pony under there.