The decision by President Donald Trump’s legal team to allow White House counsel Don McGahn to talk to special counsel Robert Mueller without restrictions was made in part because the lawyers calculated they did not have a good legal standing to prevent it and because it fit with the strategy to be cooperative with the investigation, according to sources who sought to explain McGahn’s extensive interviews.

The sources said that even though McGahn has talked to special counsel investigators — for some 30 hours — the Trump administration could still seek to prevent details of the testimony from being released publicly by asserting executive privilege on relevant elements of the report…

Some legal experts are critical of the legal strategy arguing that the team could have — at the very least — tried to limit the scope of Mueller’s questions and that by agreeing to waive privilege, without knowing how McGahn might answer some questions, McGahn’s interviews will ultimately be beneficial to Mueller.