Watergate had the Nixon tapes. Mueller had Annie Donaldson's notes.

[UpInArms]

Source: Washington Post

The notes, scribbled rapidly on a legal pad, captured the fear inside the White House when President Trump raged over the Russia investigation and decreed he was firing the FBI director who led it: “Is this the beginning of the end?”

The angst-filled entry is part of a shorthand diary that chronicled the chaotic days in Trump’s West Wing, a trove that the special counsel report cited more than 65 times as part of the evidence that the president sought to blunt a criminal investigation bearing down on him.

The public airing of the notes — which document then-White House counsel Donald McGahn’s contemporaneous account of events and his fear that the president was engaged in legally risky conduct — has infuriated Trump.

“Watch out for people that take so-called ‘notes,’ when the notes never existed until needed,” Trump tweeted a day after the release of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report.

The scribe keeping track of the president’s actions was Annie Donaldson, McGahn’s chief of staff, a loyal and low-profile conservative lawyer who figures in the Mueller report as one of the most important narrators of internal White House turmoil.

Read more: https://beta.washingtonpost.com/politics/watergate-had-the-nixon-tapes-mueller-had-annie-donaldsons-notes/2019/05/03/d2b1bc62-66b5-11e9-8985-4cf30147bdca_story.html?outputType=amp

[iluvtennis]

2. Boom. She was McGahn's chief of staff. She is Harvard educated lawyer. She resigned last year.

The Harvard Law School graduate’s unflinching words — “Just in the middle of another Russia Fiasco,” she wrote on March 2, 2017 — have cast the die-hard Republican in an unfamiliar role: as a truth teller heralded by Trump’s foes for providing what they view as proof he is unfit for office.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) has already signaled that he intends to subpoena Donaldson as a critical witness.

Donaldson — who lives in Montgomery, Ala., where her husband recently got a job as a federal prosecutor — did not respond to requests for comment. She left the White House in December, both proud of her service and also somewhat stung by her experience in Washington, friends said.

Those close to Donaldson fear she will be thrust in the middle of the building war between congressional Democrats and the White House. Some privately worry she could become a target of the president, despite having worked hard to help implement his agenda.

“My only concern for her now is not getting too caught up in this Washington meat grinder, when she really did the right thing and cooperated as she was directed,” said former Republican senator Luther Strange, who hired Donaldson to work in his law firm in Alabama.

[Grins]

4. Luther Strange hired Donaldson?

Luther Strange hired Donaldson?

RUN, Ms. Donaldson!!!! RUN! RUN! RUN AWAY! Save your good name!

[czarjak]

3. Fake notes, Donald?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

5. K&R

[H2O Man]

6. Recommended.

Thank you for this.

[world wide wally]

7. Y'know, Donald...

I used to take notes in college all the time. And I never referred to them until I needed them either.

[Honeycombe8]

8. A note taker. Sweeeeeeet. nt

[DeminPennswoods]

9. A "copious" note taker to boot

It was reported that Sean Spicer filled many notebooks with notes. I wonder if Mueller has those, too?

[UpInArms]

10. I heard hope hicks had a photographic memory

Hmmmm....

[Hekate]

11. All through college and clear up until I got carpal tunnel in my 50s and arthritis in my 60s...

...I could produce a virtual transcript of whatever lecture or discussion I was sitting in. With comments in the margins regarding the emotional state in the room. I miss being able to do that.

There was something about the kinetic nature of the process, but it was how I learned and retained information. It was invaluable to me -- but it helped others as well.

Trump is a moron and a crook, so he wants no paper trail. He has no understanding of, well, anything.

I am so glad for a conscientious and compulsive lawyerly note-taker. Thank you, Annie Donaldson.

[saidsimplesimon]

13. Your comment speaks for me, thank you.

[Ninga]

12. Ah the irony of it all!!!!

A woman.
Possibly being at the heart of taking down tRump with notes,

Declious!