Comey called McCabe from his SUV on the way home from the White House. McCabe was as shocked as Comey, especially about the request for “loyalty.” It was blatantly inappropriate in any circumstances, but especially so when the director of an independent law enforcement agency was, at that very moment, investigating matters of grave national importance that touched on the president himself and many of his close associates.
As soon as he got home, Comey started typing a memo summarizing the conversation. He initialed and dated the four-page, single-spaced document when he finished typing it the next day. He’d never done such a thing after meeting with Obama or Bush, but he never felt the need to. Comey simply didn’t trust Trump to tell the truth. And he had the sense he might need such a record someday, to protect both himself and the FBI as an institution. He made two copies. He kept one at home and took the other to the office, where he distributed it to his senior leadership team. He made it a practice to document every conversation he had alone with Trump.
THE SAME DAY as Comey’s dinner with Trump, McGahn asked Sally Yates to return to the White House to continue the Flynn discussion. He said his staff had been examining the situation, concluding that Flynn had not violated the Logan Act, which had never been prosecuted in any event. But the administration didn’t want to do anything that might interfere with any ongoing investigation of Flynn, such as firing him. As McGahn put it in a subsequent memo, “Yates was unwilling to confirm or deny that there was an ongoing investigation but did indicate that the Department of Justice would not object to the White House taking action against Flynn.”
For her part, she couldn’t understand what was taking so long. She agreed to provide the White House by the following Monday morning with the evidence that Flynn had lied. Afterward, she headed to the airport for a flight to Atlanta. She was still in the car when Axelrod called to tell her that Trump had just issued an executive order banning travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. Yates could hardly believe it; she had just been with McGahn, and he hadn’t given her any warning.
Yates spent a hectic weekend overseeing legal research and staff meetings about the travel ban. She concluded the order was unconstitutional, motivated by discrimination against Muslims, a fundamental violation of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion. After flying back to Washington, on Monday afternoon Yates issued a statement to all Justice Department personnel:
For as long as I am the Acting Attorney General, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the Executive Order, unless and until I become convinced that it is appropriate to do so.
About five hours later, at a little past 9:00 p.m., Yates received a hand-delivered letter from the White House. It contained just one sentence:
I am informing you that the President has removed you from the office of Deputy Attorney General of the United States.
THE NEXT DAY, Trump nominated Rod Rosenstein, the U.S. attorney in Baltimore, to replace her. Appointed to the post by President Bush in 2005, he was the country’s longest-serving U.S. attorney and survived the controversial 2006 purge of U.S. attorneys implemented by Bush’s attorney general, Gonzales. Rosenstein had an illustrious résumé: Wharton and Harvard Law School, where he was editor of the Law Review. Given his long tenure in Baltimore, he was well known within the FBI and generally regarded as a nonpartisan, competent prosecutor. His wire-rim glasses and slight build gave him something of a professorial appearance.
Comey had known Rosenstein for over fifteen years, and as deputy attorney general Comey had helped choose Rosenstein in 2005 to be the U.S. attorney in Baltimore. For his part, Rosenstein considered Comey “a role model,” Rosenstein has said. “His speeches about leadership and public service inspired me.” On October 27—the day before Comey sent his letter to Congress—Rosenstein had invited Comey to speak to lawyers in his office about ethics and leadership, and Comey also talked about his decision to announce the results of the Clinton investigation at a press conference without giving the Justice Department advance notice. Rosenstein didn’t express any misgivings about Comey’s approach. On the contrary, he praised Comey’s leadership and thanked him for setting an inspiring example.
Later, at a lunch with his friend Benjamin Wittes, Comey described Rosenstein as a “solid,” if not brilliant, “career guy,” which, coming from Comey, was faint praise. “Rod is a survivor,” Comey explained, and survivors have to make compromises. “So I have concerns,” he said—especially given the kinds of compromises Rosenstein might be asked to make in a Trump administration.
ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, the conservative Fox News host and bestselling author Bill O’Reilly interviewed the president as part of the network’s pregame Super Bowl show, a slot all but guaranteed to be a ratings blockbuster. It was a largely friendly interview, as Trump had expected when he agreed to do it. But then O’Reilly, a fervent anticommunist, turned to the subject of Russia.
“Do you respect Putin?” O’Reilly asked.
“I do respect Putin,” Trump answered.
“Why?”
“Well, I respect a lot of people,” Trump said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to get along with them. He’s a leader of his country. I say it is better to get along with Russia than not, and if they help us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world, major fight, that’s a good thing. Will I get along with him? I have no idea.”
“He’s a killer though. Putin is a killer,” O’Reilly asserted.
“There’s a lot of killers,” Trump said. “What, you think our country is so innocent?”
Comey didn’t watch the program, but he saw the coverage and much of the outrage it inspired. It struck him as consistent with Trump’s puzzling indifference to Russian interference in the election. Trump seemed to be “doubling down” on his reluctance to criticize the Russian government.
Three days later, on February 8, Priebus invited Comey to the White House for a “meet and greet,” as Priebus put it, a “chance to get acquainted.” As Comey was waiting outside the West Wing, Flynn, of all people, passed by, looking lean and still tan from his Christmas trip to the Dominican Republic. He offered Comey a few tips on staying fit.
Once alone, Priebus and Comey ranged over a variety of topics, starting with the travel ban. Because it wasn’t an FBI focus, Comey didn’t purport to be an expert, but he took issue with Yates, agreeing with Priebus that presidents have wide latitude when dealing with border security and the ban didn’t, on its face, discriminate against Muslims.
Priebus turned to the Steele dossier and wanted to know how something so salacious had ended up in Comey’s briefing to the president. Comey said portions of the intelligence had been corroborated by other sources; he “thought it very important that it be included” and “the incoming president needed to know the rest was out there.” Comey added that at their recent dinner the president had expressed interest in having him investigate the “golden showers thing” but that Comey didn’t want to create a narrative that they were investigating him.
Like Trump, Priebus was troubled by so many leaks. Comey explained that all presidents were “plagued” by them, and Priebus wanted to know if the FBI had ever caught a leaker. The bureau had, but “it was a rare thing because it almost always turned on our willingness to go after reporter records.”
Then Priebus asked, “Is this a private conversation?”
Comey said it was.
“I want to ask you a question and you can decide if it’s appropriate to answer,” Priebus said. “Do you have a FISA order on Mike Flynn?”
Comey was silent as he pondered the question. The question was, of course, inappropriate. On the other hand, it was an opportunity to drive home the point he had repeatedly tried to make, which was that the White House and the FBI needed to keep a distance.
So he told Priebus that he would answer: there was no FISA order on Flynn. In the future, however, all such requests should go through the Justice Department. The FBI director would typically inform the attorney general and deputy, who, if appropriate, would notify the president. Direct communication with the FBI risked looking like improper interference with an investigation.
Priebus said he understood that and it was helpful.
“I understand your dinner with the President went well,” he said, shifting topics again, adding that Trump wanted Comey to stay on as director. Comey explained that while the president could fire him at any time, he had a ten-year term, so there was no need to announce that the president had decided to keep him.
Priebus also expressed sympathy that people were holding Comey responsible for Trump’s victory over Clinton. Her team had totally “misplayed” his final decision and “should have pushed it harder as good news.” In any event, he added, “it wasn’t the Russians’ fault that she failed to campaign in Michigan,” and it wasn’t Comey’s fault “that she set up her email the way she did.”
“And it wasn’t my fault that Huma Abedin forwarded emails to Anthony Weiner,” Comey added.
Why wasn’t it “gross negligence”? Priebus wanted to know. So Comey reviewed, yet again, the basis for the decision and the lack of proof on the question of intent.
After about twenty minutes, Priebus asked if Comey wanted to drop in on the president. Comey wondered if Priebus had absorbed anything he’d just said.
“No, no thanks,” Comey said. Surely the president was too busy.
“Sit,” Priebus insisted. “I’m sure he’d love to see you. Let me see if he’s in the Oval.”
To Comey’s dismay, Trump was. Priebus brought Comey in; Spicer was just leaving, and they shook hands. Trump remained seated behind his large desk.
Trump, too, touched on the email investigation, musing that if Comey had charged Clinton, Trump might have run against Bernie Sanders. He wondered what that would have been like. And he again asked if Comey’s deputy (he didn’t seem to remember McCabe’s name) had a “problem” with him, given how tough he’d been on him during the campaign. “The number two guy at the FBI took a million dollars from the Clintons,” Trump asserted. Comey let that pass (which was false on three counts: it was his wife, not McCabe, who got the money; it wasn’t a million dollars; and it didn’t come from the Clintons). But Comey came to McCabe’s defense, saying he was a “pro.”
Had McCabe ever brought up Trump’s attacks? Trump asked.
“Never,” Comey said. He repeated that “Andy McCabe is a true pro” and “you’ll come to value him.” He said if McCabe had it to do over, he’d probably urge his wife not to run, but nonetheless the “guy put everything aside and did his job well.”
Priebus brought up the dossier, and Trump repeated that it “really bothered him” if Melania had any doubts about it. He seemed eager to expand on his earlier denial: he hadn’t stayed overnight in Russia and the “hookers thing is nonsense,” although Putin had told him “we have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world.”
Priebus kept trying to say something, but Trump ignored him.
The mention of Putin seemed to remind Trump of his recent interview with O’Reilly, whose question about Putin had been a “hard one,” Trump said.
“What am I going to do?” he asked. “Say I don’t respect the leader of a major country I’m trying to get along with?”
Priebus and Comey said nothing.
“I gave a good answer,” Trump said. “Really, it was a great answer. I gave a really great answer.” He looked at Comey.
“You think it was a great answer, right?”
There it was again, Comey thought—the loyalty test. Trump didn’t seem to need an answer; silence would be acquiescence enough.
Comey wasn’t going to give it to him.
“The first part of your answer was fine, Mr. President,” he said. “But not the second part. We aren’t the kind of killers that Putin is.”
Comey saw Trump’s jaw clench and a shadow pass over his face. Trump thanked Comey for stopping in, and Priebus wordlessly showed him out of the Oval Office.
ON FEBRUARY 8, Sessions was confirmed by his fellow senators as attorney general after a hard-fought process that focused on Sessions’s civil rights record and his willingness to stand up to Trump. (Sessions said repeatedly that he wouldn’t be a “rubber stamp.”) He’d also faced some grilling about any ties to Russia. “I’m not aware of any of those activities,” he said. “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.” And in response to a written question—“Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?”—he answered no.
Sessions was immediately thrust into the middle of the festering Flynn situation. Despite Yates’s visits to the White House, and the sense of urgency she thought she’d conveyed, nothing had been done about Flynn. But the day after Sessions’s confirmation, The Washington Post published a detailed account of what had been mentioned in the Ignatius column, which was that Flynn “privately discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with that country’s ambassador to the United States during the month before President Trump took office, contrary to public assertions by Trump officials.”
“Flynn on Wednesday denied that he had discussed sanctions with Kislyak. Asked in an interview whether he had ever done so, he twice said, ‘No,’” the report continued.
But now Flynn backtracked. A day later, on Thursday, his spokesman told the Post “that while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn’t be certain that the topic never came up.”
Continuing press coverage of Flynn and Kislyak was only keeping the Russia story alive, and Trump was upset. In a private meeting in the Oval Office, Trump grilled Flynn on the conversations; he even corrected Flynn on one of the exact dates, indicating he’d had a detailed briefing on the encounters. When Trump pressed him about what was discussed, Flynn conceded he “might” have discussed sanctions.
The day after the Post story, McCabe was at a White House briefing when McGahn asked him to stop by. McGahn’s secretary led McCabe to the vice president’s office, where Pence, Priebus, McGahn, and some staff members were waiting. Priebus said they wanted to see what evidence the FBI had gathered about Flynn, and, he said, “We want to see it right now.”
McCabe obviously wasn’t carrying it with him. He called Jim Baker to discuss the request, and someone at the FBI brought the material over. They regrouped in the White House Situation Room, and Pence started reading the file. “Oh, this is fine. No problem with this,” he muttered as he read. “Fine, fine, fine.” Then he got to the actual transcript of the call. His tone changed abruptly. He shook his head in disbelief. “This is totally opposite, and it’s not what he said to me.” Pence handed the materials back to McCabe and thanked him.
Afterward, Pence and Priebus concluded Flynn had lied to the vice president and others. It was inconceivable Flynn could simply have forgotten what was obviously the entire point of his initial and follow-up calls with Kislyak.
Priebus and McGahn told Trump he had to fire Flynn, a recommendation McGahn memorialized in a memo.
The next day, Flynn joined Trump for the weekend at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump hosted Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe. (After North Korea fired a ballistic missile that same weekend, Trump and Flynn worked out an official response to the test from the dining terrace of the club, prompting national security concerns.)
Sunday night, Flynn flew back with Trump on Air Force One. But for some reason, Trump still didn’t fire him. Instead, he asked him directly if he’d lied to the vice president. Flynn prevaricated: he might have forgotten some of the details, but he didn’t think he’d lied. That seemed to satisfy Trump. “Okay. That’s fine. I got it,” he said.
The next day, dismayed that Trump had failed to deliver the message, Priebus told Flynn point-blank that he had to resign. Flynn asked to see the president so he could say goodbye. Priebus ushered him into the Oval Office.
Trump got up, hugged Flynn, and shook his hand. “We’ll give you a good recommendation,” he said. “You’re a good guy. We’ll take care of you.”
FLYNN ANNOUNCED HIS resignation the next day, still avoiding any concession that he’d lied. “Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the Vice President Elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian Ambassador,” his resignation letter said. “I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology.”
And he effusively thanked Trump for his “personal loyalty.”
Trump tweeted the next morning that the “real story” was leaks coming out of Washington.
At that day’s press briefing at the White House, Sean Spicer offered a somewhat less sanitized version. “The President was very concerned that General Flynn had misled the Vice President and others,” he said, adding that given sensitive national security concerns, “the President must have complete and unwavering trust for the person in that position. The evolving and eroding level of trust as a result of this situation and a series of other questionable instances is what led the President to ask for General Flynn’s resignation.”
Flynn was furious over Spicer’s comments, which he thought went far beyond the approved talking points by mentioning “other questionable instances.”
At the Justice Department, career officials remained mystified that it had apparently taken a Washington Post article to prompt action, when Yates had told McGahn everything he needed to know weeks earlier, including that Flynn was a security risk. They suspected Trump would have done nothing but for the publicity.
As the Washington Post article noted, “The White House appears to have let its repeated false statements about Flynn stand for weeks after that notification from Yates, and has yet to account for what it did with the warning she conveyed. The disclosures about Flynn have added to the swirling suspicion about the Trump administration’s relationship with Moscow—suspicion based in part on Trump’s repeated expressions of admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin.”
As Spicer was delivering his press briefing, Trump had lunch at the White House with Chris Christie and his wife, Mary Pat. After giving up his run for the Republican nomination, the New Jersey governor had endorsed Trump and had seemed in line for a top cabinet post or chief of staff. Then Trump had replaced Christie as head of his transition team, reportedly at the behest of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. So it must have been awkward when Kushner joined them at the table.
At some point in the conversation, Trump brought up Flynn. “Now that we fired Flynn, the Russia thing is over,” Trump said.
Christie laughed. “No way,” he said. “This Russia thing is far from over.” We’ll “be here on Valentine’s Day 2018 talking about this.”
Kushner said that was “crazy.”
“What do you mean?” Trump asked. “Flynn met with the Russians. That was the problem. I fired Flynn. It’s over.”
Kushner chimed in: “That’s right, firing Flynn ends the whole Russia thing.”
On the contrary, Flynn will be “like gum on the bottom of your shoe,” Christie said.
As if to prove the point, that very moment Flynn called Kushner to vent his anger over Spicer’s remarks. Seemingly oblivious to conventional courtesies, Kushner took the call at the table and carried on a conversation. “You know the President respects you,” Kushner assured Flynn as the others listened. “The President cares about you. I’ll get the President to send out a positive tweet about you later.” As he spoke, Kushner turned toward Trump, who nodded in agreement (though he didn’t tweet about Flynn that day).
When conversation resumed, Christie reminded Trump that he was both a former prosecutor and himself the subject of a major investigation.*
Based on that experience, firing Flynn would not end the investigation. Christie told the president that there was no way to shorten an investigation, but many ways to prolong it, including talking about it.
Despite that advice, Trump brought up Comey twice, making clear that the FBI director remained a preoccupation. Christie had a friendly relationship with Comey, and Trump asked him to call Comey and say the president “really likes him. Tell him he’s part of the team.” Trump again asked him to make the call toward the end of the lunch.
The suggestion made Christie uncomfortable. Trump was obviously ignoring his advice to avoid doing anything that might prolong an investigation. Christie decided to ignore the request.
JUST A FEW hours after Trump’s lunch with Christie, at 4:00 p.m., Comey was back in the Oval Office with Trump, this time for a homeland security briefing. It was Comey’s first White House meeting with Sessions present. Sizing up the new attorney general, Comey found him both “overwhelmed and overmatched” for his new job. Sessions reminded him of the hapless Gonzales, without Gonzales’s kindness.
Trump seemed distracted, showed little interest in the discussion, and after about fifteen minutes brought it to an abrupt end with a dismissive “thanks, everybody.” He pointed toward Comey. “I just want to talk to Jim.”
Sessions and Kushner lingered as the other participants filed out, and Kushner chatted with Comey, mentioning how hard the email investigation must have been.
“Thanks, Jeff,” Trump said to Sessions, indicating he should leave. Trump turned to his son-in-law. “Okay, Jared, thank you.” Kushner followed Priebus out, leaving Comey, once again, alone with Trump.
The president wasted no time with pleasantries: “I want to talk about Mike Flynn.”
Trump repeatedly stressed that Flynn “hadn’t done anything wrong” in talking to Kislyak, apparently latching onto McGahn’s conclusion that the conversation didn’t violate the Logan Act. But Trump said he couldn’t have Flynn going around misleading the vice president (a “good guy”); he had other issues with Flynn (which he didn’t specify); and, in any event, he had a “great guy” to replace him. Spicer, he said, had done a “great job” that morning explaining things.
“Did you see my tweet this morning?” Trump asked, adding, “It’s really about the leaks.” He patted the gray phone set on his desk. He thought calls on “this beautiful phone” were strictly confidential, but recent conversations with the leaders of Mexico and Australia had leaked. It “makes us look terrible,” he said. Moreover, he didn’t remember saying the things that got leaked, and “they say I have one of the world’s greatest memories.”
What Flynn did wasn’t wrong “in any way,” but the leaks were terrible.
As usual, Comey had trouble getting a word in. Finally Trump stopped talking, and Comey said he, too, was eager to find leakers and would like to “nail one to the door as a message.”
“We need to go after the reporters,” Trump said. He mentioned the former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who spent eighty-five days in jail for refusing to identify a source in the Scooter Libby affair before she named Libby as her source. “Ten or fifteen years ago we put them in jail and it worked,” he said.
Comey said he believed in pursuing leaks aggressively, but going after reporters was “tricky,” both for legal reasons and because the Department of Justice was cautious with members of the media.
Trump told him to talk to Sessions and see what they could do about that. Priebus opened the door, and Comey glimpsed Pence waiting outside. But Trump waved Pence off, saying he knew people were waiting but he needed a few more minutes.
Trump got back to the subject with which he’d opened the conversation. Flynn was a “good guy” who’d “been through a lot,” Trump said. Flynn might have misled the vice president, but he didn’t do anything wrong during the call.
“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Trump said. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
What could Comey say? The request was blatantly inappropriate. “I agree he is a good guy,” Comey said awkwardly, and stopped. Even that wasn’t really true. But caught off guard, alone with the president, Comey felt he had to say something.
Trump got up from his desk. As he walked Comey out, he mentioned again that reporters should be jailed. “They spend a couple days in jail, make a new friend, and they are ready to talk,” he said.
FROM HIS CAR, Comey emailed McCabe, Baker, and his senior leadership team, “Now I have to write another memo.”
Given the circumstances of their one-on-one meeting—alone, with Priebus and Kushner deliberately excluded so there would be no witnesses—Comey interpreted Trump’s comment to “let this go” as a “directive.” He had no intention of following it.
Comey also called McCabe to discuss Trump’s request, which McCabe considered an “unqualified contradiction to what the Bureau stood for.” McCabe had found each of Comey’s conversations with Trump stranger and more inappropriate than the last. But he was willing to chalk them up to inexperience and not yet understanding the norms of government. But this was more sinister: an attempt to “manipulate the functions of government mainly for their own interests.”
The next day, when Comey and McCabe and others at the bureau discussed the options, they decided to say nothing about it to Strzok or other investigators. Nor did there seem any point in briefing Sessions.
Comey did arrange to stay behind with the attorney general after their weekly threat briefing at the Justice Department. Seated in Sessions’s secure conference room, he conveyed the message that the president wanted to go after leaks more aggressively, as promised. Then he said he never again wanted to be left alone with Trump. “That can’t happen,” Comey said. “You are my boss. You can’t be kicked out of the room so he can talk to me alone.”
Sessions didn’t speak, but looked down at the table, his eyes darting from side to side.
THE FLYNN RESIGNATION—and why it took Trump so long to ask for it—continued to attract news coverage. “Michael Flynn, General Flynn is a wonderful man,” Trump said on February 15, 2017, during an appearance with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. “I think he’s been treated very, very unfairly by the media—as I call it, the fake media, in many cases. And I think it’s really a sad thing that he was treated so badly.”
Trump continued to send messages of support to Flynn, in what Priebus thought an effort to maintain Flynn’s loyalty. He told Priebus to reach out to say the president still cared about him and felt bad about what happened to him. He told Flynn’s deputy, McFarland, to tell him he should stay strong; he told Hicks to say the president wanted to make sure he was okay.
On February 14, another damaging Russia story ran in the Times: “Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.”
Priebus thought the administration was getting “killed” in the press over Russia, so it was welcome news when McCabe stayed behind after an intelligence briefing at the White House that day and said the Times story was “overstated and inaccurate”; it was “total bullshit.”
“What can we do about it?” Priebus asked. If he could refute the story, he knew he’d be seen as a hero in the West Wing. What if he got McCabe to deny it? The media couldn’t ignore a statement from the deputy director of the FBI, and it would take the Times down a peg or two. But McCabe said he wasn’t sure he could do that. A few hours later, he called to say he couldn’t, because he’d have to discuss classified information.
“You just told me it’s inaccurate and now you say you can’t do anything? That’s ridiculous,” Priebus responded. McCabe said he’d ask again, but then he called to say the answer was still no.
“You’re not being good partners,” Priebus said, which McCabe took to mean both him personally and the FBI as an institution. Comey, too, weighed in, calling Priebus to remind him that he shouldn’t be making such requests to the FBI.
Trump complained to McGahn that Comey was “acting like his own branch of government.”
The next day, at a White House press conference, Trump was pummeled with more questions about Flynn and Russia. The president extolled Flynn as a “fine man” and said, “What he did wasn’t wrong, what he did in terms of the information he saw. What was wrong was the way that other people, including yourselves in this room, were given that information, because that was classified information that was given illegally. That’s the real problem. And you can talk all you want about Russia, which was all fake news, a fabricated deal to try and make up for the loss of the Democrats, and the press plays right into it.”
Trump acknowledged Flynn “didn’t tell the Vice President of the United States the facts, and then he didn’t remember. And that just wasn’t acceptable to me.” (Curiously, Trump didn’t say that Flynn had also dissembled with him.) As for the call to Kislyak to discuss sanctions, “It certainly would have been okay with me if he did,” Trump said. “I would have directed him to do it if I thought he wasn’t doing it. I didn’t direct him, but I would have directed him because that’s his job.”
Asked more broadly about Russia, Trump again lambasted the media: “Well, the failing New York Times wrote a big, long front-page story yesterday. And it was very much discredited, as you know. It was—it’s a joke.” He continued, “Speaking for myself, I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I don’t have any deals in Russia. President Putin called me up very nicely to congratulate me on the win of the election. He then called me up extremely nicely to congratulate me on the inauguration, which was terrific. But so did many other leaders—almost all other leaders from almost all other countries. So that’s the extent. Russia is fake news. Russia—this is fake news put out by the media.”
But over the next week, calls mounted for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. “The gravity of the issues raised by the events that led to national security adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation cannot be overstated or ignored,” the minority leader, Senator Chuck Schumer, wrote in The Washington Post. “The American people, and indeed American democracy, require a thorough and independent investigation into what transpired and whether any criminal laws or constitutional precepts were violated.” While that would normally fall within the purview of the attorney general, “in this case, given his deep and long-standing ties to President Trump and many of Trump’s top advisers, Attorney General Jeff Sessions cannot lead such an investigation.”
A few days later, Priebus was astonished when CNN reported (accurately) that he’d tried to get the FBI to refute the Times story and suggested that making such a request was a “violation of procedures.” Priebus had only tried to refute the story because McCabe brought it up and said it was inaccurate. He and Trump both saw it as yet another leak, and who could it have been but someone at the FBI? Perhaps even Comey or McCabe himself. Trump lashed out at the FBI on Twitter: “The FBI is totally unable to stop the national security ‘leakers’ that have permeated our government for a long time. They can’t even find the leakers within the FBI itself. Classified information is being given to media that could have a devastating effect on U.S. FIND NOW.”
ON FEBRUARY 28, Trump gave his first presidential address to a joint session of Congress. A seemingly new, conciliatory Trump was on view. He called for putting aside “trivial fights” and joining across party lines to improve health care and achieve tax and immigration reform. The media praised this much more traditionally “presidential” approach, and Trump basked in the glow of the favorable publicity.
For less than a day. The next morning, the vexing subject of Russia was again the lead story, and Trump saw the momentum from his speech vanish. The Washington Post reported that morning that Sessions himself had spoken with Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, twice while serving as a top adviser to the Trump campaign, once in a private meeting in Sessions’s office.
Sessions struggled to reconcile this with his sworn testimony, arguing he met with the Russian ambassador in his capacity as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, not as a campaign adviser, and thus hadn’t lied during his confirmation hearings. In a statement, he said he’d “never met with any Russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign” and promised to clarify his prior testimony.
Senator Al Franken, the Minnesota Democrat who had asked Sessions the question about contacts with Russians, called for Sessions’s recusal: “It is now clearer than ever that the attorney general cannot, in good faith, oversee an investigation at the Department of Justice and the FBI of the Trump-Russia connection, and he must recuse himself immediately.”
As the public furor over Sessions mounted, Trump called Comey at about noon, saying he just wanted to “check in” and see how Comey was doing. Comey was about to board a helicopter for a flight to Richmond but delayed his departure to take the call.
“I’m doing great,” Comey said, but “I have a lot going on.”
Comey praised Sessions, saying the attorney general seemed “to have hit the ground running” with a recent speech on violent crime.
“That’s his thing,” Trump responded.
But Trump didn’t say anything more about Sessions, though it must have been the subject uppermost in his mind. He said only that Comey should “take good care” of himself and stop by to see him the next time he was at the White House.
The next morning, Trump summoned McGahn and told him to stop Sessions from recusing himself. Doing so would make Sessions look guilty of lying about his contacts with the Russian ambassador and, even worse, leave Trump without an ally overseeing the investigation.
McGahn dutifully delivered the message—repeatedly—but Sessions said he intended to follow the department’s rules. McGahn tried calling anyone who might be able to influence Sessions, even the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, to no avail. Sessions fielded a barrage of similar calls from other administration officials, suggesting Trump had enlisted a battery of supporters to lobby him.
But Sessions and the Justice Department lawyers advising him didn’t believe he had any choice, even before the devastating Post article. Justice Department regulations state, “No DOJ employee may participate in a criminal investigation or prosecution if he has a personal or political relationship with any person or organization substantially involved in the conduct that is the subject of the investigation or prosecution, or who would be directly affected by the outcome.” Sessions had a political relationship with Trump; Trump was involved in the conduct being investigated; and Trump had a huge stake in the outcome.
Sessions issued a statement that afternoon announcing, “I have decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States.” At a press conference he added, “My staff recommended recusal,” and “I have studied the rules and considered their comments and evaluation. I believe those recommendations are right and just.”
Trump was livid. He convened a meeting with McGahn and Priebus. As the conversation became heated, Hicks called Bannon and told him to come to the Oval Office. When Bannon arrived, Trump was as angry as Bannon had ever seen him.
“I don’t have a lawyer,” Trump said, glowering at McGahn. “Where’s my Roy Cohn?”
Cohn had won hopeless cases for him and did “incredible things” for him, Trump said.
That Trump would cite Roy Cohn as a positive role model left his audience speechless. As Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel, Cohn had aggressively assisted the senator’s purge of suspected communists during the mid-1950s; Cohn had tried to identify and purge homosexuals in the military and government (despite his own homosexuality); and he’d been disbarred for unethical conduct. Cohn was a memorable character in Tony Kushner’s acclaimed play Angels in America, portrayed as a lying, bitter, self-hating hypocrite dying of AIDS.
But for Trump, Cohn was a “winner and a fixer,” someone who “got things done,” in contrast to McGahn and Sessions, who now merited Trump’s ultimate opprobrium—“weak.”
By now, Trump was practically screaming. Referring to the previous attorneys general Bobby Kennedy and Eric Holder, Trump went on, “You’re telling me that Bobby and Jack didn’t talk about investigations? Or Obama didn’t tell Eric Holder who to investigate?” They had protected the president. Holder had always stood up for President Obama and even took a contempt charge for him. Bobby Kennedy always had “his brother’s back.” Trump said he’d been told his entire life that he needed a great lawyer, a “bulldog.”
Trump went so far as to say he wanted an attorney general he could tell “who to investigate.”
Trump was so angry he told Priebus he didn’t want him on Air Force One for a planned weekend at Mar-a-Lago, and he agreed to stay behind. Bannon said he’d fly down the next day on the Justice Department plane with Sessions and McGahn. Trump did have dinner with them and a few others on Saturday night and pulled Sessions aside to ask him to “unrecuse” himself. He again mentioned Kennedy and Holder as the kind of attorney general he needed to protect him.
Early the next morning, in what might have been an effort to change the subject, he tweeted the sensational claim that Obama had tapped his phone: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
And immediately after: “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
WITH SESSIONS’S RECUSAL from anything involving the Trump campaign, Rod Rosenstein’s confirmation hearing on March 7 took on sudden significance, because, if confirmed as deputy attorney general, Rosenstein would be in charge of the Russia investigation. Democrats seized the occasion to renew their call for the appointment of a special counsel, but Rosenstein said he needed to know the facts before making that decision. He noted, however, that Lynch hadn’t recused herself in the Clinton email case.
The Republican senator and Judiciary Committee chair, Charles Grassley, said he wouldn’t schedule a vote on Rosenstein until Comey briefed Congress on the Russia investigation. So two days later, after extended discussions with Justice Department officials about what he could say, Comey briefed the so-called Gang of Eight—the congressional leaders who, in strict confidence, receive classified intelligence briefings—and confirmed, for the first time, that the Russia investigation existed. He identified the four subjects—Flynn, Page, Manafort, and Papadopoulos—and said that at that juncture Trump himself was not a subject.
Within days, Trump was in a “panic/chaos” about the Russia investigation, according to notes from McGahn’s office dated March 12. Four days later, a Gang of Eight member, Richard Burr, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who had advised Trump during the campaign on national security matters, provided Comey’s testimony to the White House. According to notes from McGahn’s office dated March 16, Burr identified “4–5 targets”: “Flynn (FBI was in—wrapping up)→DOJ looking for phone records”; “Comey→Manafort (Ukr + Russia, not campaign)”; “Carter Page ($ game)”; and “Greek Guy.”
On March 20, Comey gave a similar briefing to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired by a fierce Trump partisan, Representative Devin Nunes of California. In contrast to his Senate testimony, the hearing was public. Nonetheless, in consultation with the Justice Department, Comey had decided to confirm the existence of the investigation as being in the public interest—but not to say whether Trump (or anyone else) was being investigated. This was in part to protect Trump, because once Comey said publicly that the president was not personally under investigation, he’d have to correct the record if he ever was, much as Comey had to notify Congress once Clinton was again under investigation.
“As you know, our practice is not to confirm the existence of ongoing investigations, especially those investigations that involve classified matters, but in unusual circumstances where it is in the public interest, it may be appropriate to do so as Justice Department policies recognize. This is one of those circumstances,” Comey began, and proceeded to confirm “that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed. Because it is an open ongoing investigation and is classified, I cannot say more about what we are doing and whose conduct we are examining.”
Comey spent much of the ensuing five and a half hours fending off questions about who was being investigated, including Trump himself.
Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Select Intelligence Committee, asked whether it was true that Trump’s phones at Trump Tower had been tapped.
“With respect to the President’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets and we have looked carefully inside the FBI,” Comey responded. “The Department of Justice has asked me to share with you that the answer is the same for the Department of Justice and all its components. The department has no information that supports those tweets.”
Comey’s testimony infuriated Trump. The next day, he was “beside himself,” according to notes from McGahn’s office. Not only had Comey failed to state that Trump himself wasn’t being investigated, but he’d left the distinct impression that he was. (It was lost on Trump that saying he wasn’t under investigation generated an obligation to say if he was.)
Perhaps even worse, Comey had undercut Trump’s claim that his phones had been tapped. Comey had made him “look like a fool,” Trump said.
And thanks to his “bombshell” confirming the conversation, Comey was all over the TV news broadcasts and the front pages. This was exactly the kind of grandstanding that so irked Trump, that had prompted his earlier comment that Comey “was more famous than me.”
Trump called McGahn repeatedly that day to vent about Comey and threatened to fire him. The president got “hotter and hotter, get rid?” according to notes taken by McGahn’s chief of staff. McGahn had a lawyer in his office research whether a president needed cause to fire an FBI director. (He concluded that he didn’t but neglected to tell the president that.) McGahn spent much of the day running interference with the Justice Department and discouraging Trump from acting on his impulse to call the department himself and demand a statement that he wasn’t under investigation.
The president was consumed with the issue throughout the week, complaining to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, “I can’t do anything with Russia, there’s things I’d like to do with Russia, with trade, with ISIS, they’re all over me with this,” and to the NSA director, Michael Rogers, that “the thing with the Russians” was “messing up” his ability to get things done. He also asked Rogers if he could do anything to refute the stories. The issue even overshadowed Trump’s effort to overturn Obamacare, one of the signature promises of his campaign. That Friday, House Republicans abandoned efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act after failing to come up with enough votes, even though they had a majority.
At about 8:15 a.m. on March 30, Trump finally called Comey, notwithstanding the repeated warnings about direct contact with the FBI director. The president began with a comment that Comey was getting more publicity than he was (which Comey considered a joke, showing how much he underestimated Trump’s resentment at being upstaged). “I hate that,” Comey said.
Then Trump said he was trying to run the country but the “cloud” of “this Russia business” was making that difficult. He said it had cost him the health care vote.
He again denounced the Steele dossier. He had nothing to do with Russia and had a letter saying he derived no income from Russia “from the largest law firm in D.C.” As for consorting with “hookers,” “Can you imagine me, hookers?” He had a “beautiful wife,” and all this had been “painful” for her. He was going to sue Christopher Steele.
Comey listened; he’d heard variations of all this before.
Finally Trump asked what he could do to “lift the cloud.” Comey said the FBI was moving as quickly as it could, and if it found nothing, Trump would have “our Good Housekeeping seal of approval.” But the bureau needed to do its work unimpeded.
Trump claimed to agree, but returned to how hard this was making his job. He was being tough on Russia, ramping up production of oil (thereby driving down prices and Russia’s oil revenues) and renewing America’s nuclear weapons (“ours are 40 years old”).
Trump wanted to know why Congress had held a hearing the previous week and why Comey had testified. Comey said he hadn’t volunteered for the task but that legislators from both parties demanded it; Grassley had even threatened to block Rosenstein’s confirmation. Comey assured Trump that he’d briefed the congressional leadership in greater detail, making clear—as Comey had told Trump before—that the president wasn’t under investigation.
That was clearly what Trump wanted to hear. “We need to get that fact out,” he said. And although he, Trump, hadn’t done anything with the Russians, if one of his “satellites” had, it would be good to find out. But, he said again, it would be good to get out that the FBI wasn’t investigating him.
Trump abruptly turned to the subject of McCabe, someone he hadn’t brought up again, because Comey had assured him he was an honorable guy.
“He is an honorable guy,” Comey responded.
But “McAuliffe is close to the Clintons and gave him money,” Trump said.
Comey had no idea why Trump was bringing up McCabe now (although McCabe’s recent refusal to correct the Times story might well have been on his mind). Comey said McCabe was a professional, not motivated by politics, and was, indeed, an “honorable guy.”
Trump returned to his main theme: he was trying to make deals for the country, and this “cloud” was making it difficult. He hated going to the upcoming G7 meeting with it hanging over him. Again, he said Comey should find a way to get out the fact that he wasn’t being investigated.
Comey said he’d see what he could do, then called the acting deputy attorney general, Dana Boente, for guidance about how to respond. He also told Boente, as he had so many times, that he was uncomfortable taking calls from the president about an ongoing investigation.
ON APRIL 7, Trump’s nominee Neil M. Gorsuch was confirmed as a justice of the Supreme Court, fulfilling a Trump campaign pledge to replace Antonin Scalia, who had died in February 2016, with a similarly reliable conservative justice. The New York Times called Gorsuch’s confirmation a “triumph” for Trump and said the president “now has a lasting legacy: Judge Gorsuch, 49, could serve on the court for 30 years or more.”
In a statement, Trump hailed Gorsuch as “a deep believer in the rule of law.”
But Trump didn’t take much time to savor his victory or reward his allies and staff, like McGahn, who had helped make it happen. Instead, he fretted about Comey.
Just four days later, on April 11, shortly before 8:30 a.m., Trump called Comey again. Trump’s patience was wearing thin. There were no pleasantries this time, or even pointed comments about Comey’s celebrity. Trump wanted to ask what Comey had done about his request to publicize the fact he wasn’t under investigation. Comey said he’d sought guidance from Dana Boente at the Justice Department but hadn’t heard back.
“Who’s that?” Trump asked.
Trump reminded Comey that he was “trying to do work for the country, visit with foreign leaders, and any cloud, even a little cloud, gets in the way of that. They keep bringing up the Russia thing as an excuse for losing the election.”
Comey suggested Trump have people in the White House contact the Justice Department about a statement, which was the proper channel, rather than coming to him.
Trump seemed to agree but then added, “Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal, we had that thing, you know.”
Comey didn’t immediately respond. He didn’t ask Trump what “thing” he meant. He again urged Trump to have someone contact the Justice Department.
The two turned to a few other matters, and then Trump told Comey, unconvincingly, that he was doing a “great job.”
It was the last time they spoke.