According to the bio provided in the Mandate for Leadership, Dearborn “served as Deputy Chief of Staff for President Donald Trump….He also served as Executive Director of the 2016 President-elect Donald Trump transition team.” The Bipartisan Policy Center’s website lists him as a senior fellow and states that he was deputy chief of staff “From January of 2017 until mid-March of 2018.” Previously, Dearborn worked as “Chief of Staff for then-U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions.” Sessions would later serve as Trump’s attorney general. An online search did not reveal any stated reason why Dearborn, like Sessions and many others, left the Trump administration before its term ended.
According to a press release issued by the House Judiciary Committee on August 15, 2019, Dearborn was subpoenaed by the committee to answer questions regarding his role in the Trump’s administration’s “extensive efforts to obstruct” the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The release describes the specific act that involved Dearborn in the Trump administration’s alleged obstruction of justice. After a meeting with Trump, Corey Lewandowski, who had served in the Trump campaign and remained in contact with Trump after the election, asked Dearborn to deliver a message from Trump to Attorney General Sessions to limit Mueller’s investigation.
The release states:
“The message ‘definitely raised an eyebrow’ for Dearborn, and he recalled not wanting to ask where it came from or think further about doing anything with it. Dearborn also said that being asked to serve as a messenger to Sessions made him uncomfortable. He recalled later telling Lewandowski that he had handled the situation, but he did not actually follow through with delivering the message to Sessions.”
The series of events may be laid out more fully. Early in his term, President Trump was under investigation by Special Counsel Mueller, who had been chosen to investigate cooperation between the Trump campaign and the Russian government in interfering in the 2016 presidential election. Although nominally independent, Mueller answered to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (and later Matt Whitaker) at the Department of Justice. Attorney General Sessions had recused himself from overseeing Mueller after it was revealed that Sessions had met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in 2016. Sessions had denied having communications with the Russian government at his Senate confirmation hearing.
Presumably, Dearborn’s reluctance about delivering the message to Sessions had to do with the fact that doing so could involve Dearborn in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. That Dearborn was fired by Trump for not delivering the message is purely a matter of speculation.
In response to the subpoena issued by the House Judiciary Committee to Dearborn, White House Counsel Pat A. Cipollone issued a letter stating that Dearborn was “absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony.” The White House’s refusal to honor congressional subpoenas were a significant factor in Trump’s first impeachment, which included a charge of obstruction of Congress.
