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At the close of 2018, President Trump appointed General Milley, then the Army chief, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs, a year before the official end of the term of Marine General Joseph Dunford Jr.
Trump made it clear to his aides that he felt Milley, with his broad shoulders and outgoing persona, was his kind of general. David Urban, a West Point graduate and lobbyist whom Trump credited with helping him win Pennsylvania in 2016, and who was a constant booster for Trump on CNN, had given Milley a hearty recommendation. Jim Mattis, Trump’s defense secretary, had been pushing for Air Force Chief of Staff David L. Goldfein. Trump sided with Urban.
During Milley’s confirmation hearing before the Armed Services Committee, Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, said, “General Milley, given the risks that you have articulated and that the National Defense Strategy articulates, I consider your job the second most important in the United States government because we are living in a dangerous world. And your position as principal advisor to the president in a time of heightened international tension and risk is incredibly significant and important. You know what my question is going to be.”
“Are you going to be intimidated?” Milley responded.
“That is the question,” King said. “What is the answer?”
“Absolutely not, by no one ever. I will give my best military advice. It will be candid. It will be honest. It will be rigorous. It will be thorough. And that is what I will do every single time.”
Milley was self-righteous and relished proclaiming his independence. But nothing prepared him for Trump. There was no training course, no preparatory work, no school for handling a president who was a total outsider to the system. Trump simultaneously embraced military imagery and language but could be harshly critical of military leaders. Trump had isolationist and unpredictable instincts when it came to policy. America First often meant America Only.
As he settled into his new job, Milley believed his central mission was to prevent a great powers war. One large bookcase in his hallway at Quarters 6 held hundreds of thick books just on China.
The job also meant being the top military adviser to Trump, a responsibility that prompted Milley to think about a doctrine called “movement to contact,” where you navigate through smoke in a battlespace and try to feel out the unknown, step by step, learning as you go. Milley had practiced it before Trump, now it was a way of life.
Mattis once called Trump’s tendency to wander off during briefings “Seattle freeway off-ramps to nowhere,” where Fox News items were “more salient to him.”
Trump would not let up on both the largest and smallest matters. He became obsessed with the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier—its cost and the placement of the “island,” the flight command center, that sits upright on the deck.
The generals and admirals were horrible businessmen, Trump complained repeatedly, and particularly terrible at acquisition and deal making on big ships, ensuring the military was always being ripped off.
The Ford, named after the 38th president, was a prime example of these white elephant business practices, Trump said. He lashed out about almost everything about the Ford—the elevators that raised and lowered ammunition on the ship, the catapults used for launching aircraft from the deck.
“I was in the construction business,” Trump told military leaders in one meeting. “I know about elevators. If water gets on them,” they could malfunction.
But it was the redesigned placement of the island, more to the rear of the deck, that set the president off.
“It doesn’t look right. I have an eye for aesthetics,” Trump said at a dinner with Milley.
Trump then rubbed his own hair.
“Can’t you tell?” he said in a jovial way.
Top naval officers later explained to Trump that the island was set to the rear to expand the runway space for the aircraft that landed on the deck. If the island were in the center, they said, it would funnel the wind in a way that made it more difficult for pilots.
“It just doesn’t look right,” Trump said.
Trump returned to the topic of the Ford many times, and Milley would listen. What was there to say? The president did not like a ship’s look. He had to endure it, just let him vent.
Trump had announced on December 7, 2018, that he would nominate William Barr to be his next attorney general to replace Jeff Sessions. Barr, 68, had been attorney general 26 years earlier for President George H. W. Bush from late 1991 to early 1993, then served as general counsel for Verizon for 14 years.
A conservative Republican, Barr was one of the strongest advocates for the executive power of the president, and he was a firm supporter of Trump’s policies, tax cuts and deregulation. And he had publicly criticized Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation of alleged collusion between Trump and Russia for infringing Trump’s power—a gesture even some Republicans saw as deliberately ingratiating.
“My first choice since day one,” Trump had said. “There is no one more capable or qualified for this role.”
In his interview with Trump, Barr had underscored that the president and the White House had to keep their distance from criminal investigations conducted by the Justice Department and supervised by the attorney general.
Criminal prosecutions had one rigorous standard: proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That was the basis on which someone was charged or not charged. Barr said it was in the interest of the president, the White House, the attorney general, and the Justice Department to keep a wall between criminal justice decisions and politics. He said he had learned this the first time he was attorney general. There could be no exceptions and he would not tolerate any effort by anyone to break through that wall. It was the one absolute.
Just so it was clear, Barr said again that he would not tolerate the president trying to monkey around with the criminal justice process—who to prosecute, who not to prosecute. “I don’t want to hear about it,” Barr said. “If there’s something that’s appropriate for you to know, I’ll tell you.”
Trump acknowledged Barr’s declaration, but Barr was not sure the president understood it.
“Under the regulations, Bob Mueller could only be terminated for good cause,” Barr testified a month later at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. For decades, he had known Mueller, who had been FBI director for 12 years. Mueller’s reputation was sterling, he was an independent workaholic. “Frankly, it is unimaginable to me that Bob would do anything that gave rise to good cause.”
Barr added, “I believe right now the overarching public interest is to allow him to finish.” More pointedly, “I do not believe Mr. Mueller would be involved in a witch hunt.” Before Barr was nominated, Trump had called the Russia investigation a “witch hunt” 84 times.
Barr intentionally did not take shots at Mueller. During a break about two hours into the hearing, he went back to a holding room. His team of advisers said he was really kicking ass out there, doing a great job.
Barr’s chief of staff came up and said he just got a call from Emmet Flood, who had recently served as the president’s acting White House counsel. “He said he has a client problem.”
“Why?” Barr asked.
“The president’s going crazy. He thinks he made a mistake picking you because of what you’ve been saying. You said nice things about Bob Mueller.”
At the White House, First Lady Melania Trump offered a contrary opinion to the president.
“Are you crazy?” she asked her husband. “This guy’s right out of central casting. Look,” she pointed at Barr, “that’s an attorney general.”
The contrast with the mousy Sessions was clear.
Now Melania was speaking the language of the president, who put a premium on appearance. Barr, six feet and with an extraordinarily large belly, came across as the sober, knowledgeable lawyer, she said.
Trump later told Barr of his wife’s remarks and how important they were to him. “You do come out of central casting.” He seemed to excuse Barr’s otherwise slothful appearance. Barr knew he came across as Big, with a powerful, confident voice.
Trump, who was on the chunky side himself, said to Barr about his weight, “You hold it well, Bill. You carry it well. Be careful because if you lose too much weight, your skin is going to start becoming saggy.”
Mueller finally finished his report in March 2019, and under the law and rules delivered the 448-page document to Barr as the attorney general. Barr and his top aides read it.
“You’re not going to believe this,” Barr said in a call to Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham. “After two fucking years he says, ‘Well, I don’t know, you decide.’ ”
Barr said Mueller found no evidence that Trump or his aides worked illegally or colluded with Russia. But on the critical question of whether Trump had obstructed justice, Mueller wrote one of the most convoluted lines in the history of high-profile investigations: “While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
The attorney general was a believer in what he called the “shit or get off the pot” rule for prosecutors. They either charged or did not charge. Prosecutors were not supposed to make judgments about exoneration. Barr released a letter stating that he and his deputy “have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
The four-page summary letter and that conclusion became more controversial than the Mueller report itself. Many were outraged, calling Barr a sycophant and loyalist dutifully protecting the president, and cleaning up Trump’s mess.
“It was a complete and total exoneration,” Trump said, contradicting Barr’s letter, which quoted the Mueller report’s statement that it “does not exonerate him.”
Mueller himself complained that the Barr letter distorted his findings. Next, 700 former federal prosecutors weighed in, saying the Mueller report showed multiple acts of obstruction of justice by the president, and that the president was not charged because of the Justice Department policy of not indicting a sitting president.
In a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, a federal judge said that Barr “distorted the findings in the Mueller Report,” another critique accusing Barr of carrying water for Trump.
For practical purposes, the Mueller investigation was over though it would be debated for years. Trump was not charged, nor was he ever impeached as a result of the findings in the Mueller probe.
Trump had weathered a real threat to his presidency. He told Woodward in a taped interview, “The beautiful thing is, it all evaporated. It ended in a whimper. It was pretty amazing. It ended in dust.”