Even worse than that. He made NO EFFORT to communicate corective action back to Trump, even though he knows many ways to get that done, and in fact had done so on other occasions. He didn;t pas it back to Sessions, he didn't pass it back to WH counsel, etc. Even granting he lacks the fortitude to object directly to Trump's face, the fact he made no effort to ge tthe message back to Trump shows, to me, an intention to harm the relationship, long term.
Or he didn’t take it as an order at the time, but is lying about it now in order to torpedo Trump.