SUBLIME:

Mr. Trump's lawyers realized on Saturday that they had not been provided a full accounting after The New York Times published an article describing Mr. McGahn's extensive cooperation with Mr. Mueller's office. After Mr. McGahn was initially interviewed by the special counsel's office in November, Mr. Trump's lawyers never asked for a complete description of what Mr. McGahn had said, according to a person close to the president.

Mr. McGahn's lawyer, William A. Burck, gave the president's lawyers a short overview of the interview but few details, and he did not inform them of what Mr. McGahn said in subsequent interactions with the investigators, according to a person close to Mr. Trump. Mr. McGahn and Mr. Burck feared that Mr. Trump was setting up Mr. McGahn to take the blame for any possible wrongdoing, so they embraced the opening to cooperate fully with Mr. Mueller in an effort to demonstrate that Mr. McGahn had done nothing wrong.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump's lead lawyer dealing with the special counsel, Rudolph W. Giuliani, appeared to acknowledge that he had only a partial understanding of what Mr. McGahn had revealed. Mr. Giuliani said his knowledge was secondhand, given to him by a former Trump lawyer, John Dowd, who was one of the primary forces behind the initial strategy of full cooperation.

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