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> Washington( CNN) President Donald Trump denied again Friday President Donald Trump had instructed President Donald Trump former White House counsel to fire Robert Mueller, contradicting the redacted report Robert Mueller released last week and furthering a battle with Democrats over whether Don McGahn, Don McGahn, should testify before Congress.It comes as Trump scales up Don McGahn attacks on Robert Mueller and the report Don McGahn produced -- broadsides and claims that some view as damaging to an overall legal strategy of asserting executive privilege to prevent key aides from appearing before Congress.Some West Wing officials have conceded that the President's tweets disputing McGahn's account are not helpful to their case, and fear it could make it more difficult to assert privilege over a conversation that Trump denies occurred. Mueller's report portrays The President as consumed by the Russia probe and intent on short-circuiting it. Those portrayals have led Democrats on Capitol Hill to issue their own requests for some of the report's key players, including Don McGahn. But White House has dug in, refusing to cooperate with the requests and disallowing some aides from appearing before congressional panels.Trump at war with Democrats : Were fighting all the subpoenasIn the case of Don McGahn, lawmakers are keen to know what specifically Trump asked in his conversations about the special counsel. In his report, Robert Mueller wrote Trump read MoreBut Trump has long disputed that, including to Don McGahn Don McGahn in an episode recounted in detail in the Mueller report. Speaking to reporters on the South Lawn, Trump insisted he would have been within his rights to dismiss Robert Mueller, but that history told him to hold off.