They entered from Fifty-sixth Street, shielded from the press corps waiting on Fifth Avenue. After they were seated in a conference room upstairs, Trump arrived with Vice President–elect Mike Pence, Sean Spicer, and the incoming national security team: Flynn; Mike Pompeo, his choice for CIA director; Tom Bossert, the homeland security adviser; and K. T. McFarland, the deputy national security adviser.
Clapper led the briefing, interrupted only once by Trump, who asked, “But you found there was no impact on the result, right?” Clapper explained that it wasn’t their task to determine whether the Russian efforts had influenced the outcome. All he could say was there was no evidence any votes had been altered or compromised.
To Comey’s surprise, Trump and his advisers asked no questions about what Russia was still doing and might do in future elections, or what the United States was doing to combat it. Instead, Priebus launched into a discussion about how they could “position” the intelligence with the media, stressing the finding that Russia had no impact on Trump’s victory.
To Comey, this was spin, not fact. Trump and his advisers went on in this vein almost as though Comey and the others weren’t there. Clapper had to interrupt to remind them, as he’d just said, that the intelligence agencies had not evaluated whether Russia had any influence on the outcome, only that it had tried.
As an experienced former prosecutor of organized crime, Comey couldn’t help but think about how the Mafia drew its participants into its “family” by sharing confidences and strategy and getting everyone to agree. Trump and his team seemed instinctively to be doing much the same thing. It made Comey deeply uncomfortable, but he said nothing.
Trump finally wound up the discussion, and Priebus asked if there was anything else they needed to know.
The moment was at hand. Clapper said, “Well, yes,” adding that he and the others would leave, and Comey would stay behind to discuss it with a smaller group.
“How small?” Trump asked.
“I was thinking the two of us,” Comey said.
Priebus suggested that he and Pence remain as well, but Trump said, “Just the two of us.”
Everyone else filed out.
“You’ve had one heck of a year,” Trump said when they were alone. He praised Comey’s handling of the email investigation, noting that Comey had repeatedly been put in an “impossible” situation. “You saved her and then they hated you for what you did later, but what choice did you have?” Trump said. Trump praised Comey’s reputation and said he hoped he’d be staying on as FBI director.
“I intend to, sir,” Comey said. It seemed an odd comment from Trump, given that Comey still had more than six years remaining in his ten-year term.
“Good,” Trump replied.
Trying to maintain a matter-of-fact tone, Comey followed the script he’d worked out with McCabe, Baker, and the others at FBI headquarters. He said he needed to discuss some sensitive information that was circulating within the intelligence community because he didn’t want Trump to be “caught cold” by some of the details. Then Comey turned to the most sensitive allegation: that the Russians had videotapes of Trump consorting with prostitutes in the Presidential Suite at the Ritz-Carlton in 2013. He spared Trump the lurid detail that the women had urinated on the same bed where the Obamas had slept.
“There were no prostitutes, there were never prostitutes!” Trump angrily interjected.
He didn’t need to “go there,” Trump said. Comey took that to mean that Trump didn’t need to pay for sex. Almost to himself, Trump repeated the year “2013” and seemed to be searching his memory. He said that he always assumed that hotel rooms where he stayed were bugged, and Comey said that when he traveled abroad, he did, too.
Comey assured Trump that it wasn’t that the FBI believed the allegations but that Trump needed to know the dossier existed and was being widely circulated. CNN had it and was looking for a “news hook.” Comey said it was important the FBI not give it one by revealing it had the dossier or was looking into its substance, and he assured Trump the bureau was keeping it within a tightly controlled circle to prevent leaks.
Trump said he couldn’t believe CNN had the dossier and hadn’t run with it.
Comey explained that the information was “inflammatory” and the media would get “killed” if it ran with it without substantiating the allegations.
That an FBI director would be briefing a future president of the United States in private about such compromising personal information was so unprecedented, so bizarre, that Comey felt as if he were watching himself in a play or movie. It was something akin to an “out-of-body experience.”
Trump suddenly started discussing women who’d falsely accused him of groping or grabbing them, again implying that his inherent sex appeal made any such moves unnecessary. Although he mentioned several of his accusers, Trump focused on a stripper who’d accused him of grabbing her (presumably a reference to Stephanie Clifford, the actress and stripper known as Stormy Daniels).
As Trump grew more agitated, Comey sensed the conversation was teetering on disaster. Now was the time to defuse the situation.
“We are not investigating you, sir,” Comey said.
He said again that the information might be “totally made up” but that to protect Trump from any effort to coerce him, the FBI needed to understand what the Russians were doing and might do. And he wanted Trump to be aware that the allegations might surface at any time in the media.
The assurance seemed to calm Trump. He said he was grateful for the information and again praised Comey and said he looked forward to working with him. The two shook hands. Comey’s private conversation with Trump had lasted only five minutes but felt much longer.
Comey left the conference room, passing Jared Kushner in the corridor as he left.
* * *
—
MCCABE, PAGE, BAKER, and Strzok were to varying degrees appalled by Trump’s reaction when Comey briefed them on the meeting, as much by what Trump didn’t say as by what he did. Trump could have denied the allegations; expressed outrage at the Russian attempt to interfere; urged Comey to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible; and pledged his full cooperation and that of his incoming administration. That was how they hoped an incoming president, faced with a blatant act of hostility from a foreign power, would have responded. Instead, Trump had denied there were prostitutes. That was hardly reassuring.
Still, they thought Comey had handled an exceptionally awkward encounter well. He’d stressed that the FBI was trying to protect the president. Trump had thanked him for sharing the information.
Their reactions showed how little they knew or understood Trump.
* * *
—
WITHIN FOUR DAYS of the Trump Tower meeting, word of the briefing had leaked. CNN didn’t publish the Steele dossier, but it came close. On January 10, the network reported, “Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.”
Trump immediately tweeted: “FAKE NEWS—A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT”—his first use of the phrase “witch hunt” to describe the Russia probe.*
Just one hour later, BuzzFeed News published thirty-five pages of the dossier.
BuzzFeed News went to some lengths to justify what it knew would be a controversial decision to publish. In its introduction to the materials, it noted the dossier “has been circulating among elected officials, intelligence agents, and journalists for weeks” and had “acquired a kind of legendary status among journalists, lawmakers, and intelligence officials who have seen” it. BuzzFeed News also cautioned readers that much of the dossier’s contents couldn’t be verified, that it contained demonstrable errors, and that it had been compiled
by a political opponent of Trump’s.
Conway, on national television, maintained Trump was “not aware” of any such intelligence briefing (which was patently false). Michael Cohen, Trump’s lawyer named in the dossier, called it “ridiculous” and a “fake story” (even though Cohen had told Trump about the possibility of embarrassing tapes).
Despite the disclaimers, the story was a bombshell. Even though CNN, the Times, the Post, The New Yorker, and other media outlets knew about the dossier and its contents and had declined to publish them, all now weighed in on the impact and significance of the revelations, driving massive traffic to BuzzFeed’s website. As the Times wrote the next day, the consequences of the story “have been incalculable and will play out long past Inauguration Day.” Multiple congressional committees launched investigations.
Trump was beside himself, tweeting obsessively that the dossier was fake. He called Steele, its author, “sick.” He also made direct calls to the intelligence officials who had just briefed him. Clapper emailed Comey, saying Trump had called him on January 11 to ask “if I could put out a statement. He would prefer of course that I say the documents are bogus, which, of course, I can’t do.”
Trump called Comey about 5:00 p.m. the same day. He seemed most concerned about how the dossier had “leaked.” Comey explained that it wasn’t really a leak, given that the dossier had been compiled by private parties who shared it widely and thus wasn’t a government document. (On the other hand, someone had leaked the fact of the intelligence briefing, which gave CNN its “news hook” for reporting about the dossier.)
Trump told Comey he’d been thinking more about his 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant and recalled that he hadn’t even spent the night there. He’d gone to the Ritz-Carlton only to change his clothes and had flown back to New York the same night. Then he launched into the graphic incident Comey hadn’t mentioned, but by now was dominating the news cycle: urinating on the bed, what Trump referred to as “golden showers.”
“I’m a germophobe,” Trump protested. “There’s no way I would let people pee on each other around me. No way.”
Comey laughed nervously. He found that unpersuasive: even a germophobe could have witnessed the incident from a safe distance. Nor did being there require an overnight stay. And Trump confirmed that he had been at the Ritz-Carlton. But Comey didn’t say anything.
As Trump ended the call, Comey gazed out his large office windows at the lit monuments of the capital. Much as during the conversation at Trump Tower, he had trouble believing he had just had such a conversation with a man who, in a little more than a week, would be president of the United States.
* * *
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“SOMETHING IS ROTTEN in the state of Denmark,” began the column by the influential Washington Post columnist David Ignatius the next day, referring to “this past week of salacious leaks about foreign espionage plots and indignant denials.”
What upset Comey and others in the intelligence community wasn’t so much pointed references to the Steele dossier as what did appear to be a new leak:
According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking. What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions? The Logan Act bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about “disputes” with the United States. Was its spirit violated?
Comey was so concerned that he launched an investigation to determine the source of the leak.
Comey wasn’t the only person alarmed by the disclosure. An angry Trump called Priebus: “What the hell is this all about?”
Priebus called Flynn, saying he’d spoken to the “boss” and Flynn needed to “kill the story.”
Flynn had his deputy, K. T. McFarland, call the Post to deny the account (even though she was well aware that the column was accurate), and the Post updated the story to say that two Trump “team members” had called to deny the account, insisting that sanctions weren’t discussed.
The next day, Trump’s spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Flynn had “reached out” to Kislyak only to convey holiday greetings and also denied that sanctions had been discussed. On Sunday, Pence appeared on Face the Nation and Priebus on Meet the Press to deny the Post’s reporting. Pence said he’d spoken to Flynn, and “those conversations that happened to occur around the time that the United States took action to expel diplomats had nothing whatsoever to do with those sanctions.”
Comey, of course, knew none of this was true. And he wasn’t the only one. Kislyak and the Russians knew that sanctions had been discussed. As the falsehoods mounted, concerns grew within the Obama administration, especially at the Justice Department. There, Sally Yates, the deputy attorney general, Axelrod, and Toscas were all convinced that Flynn was misleading other members of the incoming administration, lying to them about the substance of the December 29 conversation, which they in turn repeated to a national audience. Because the Russians knew Flynn was lying, they had leverage they could use with him. Yates felt the White House needed to be warned.
Yates called Comey to express the department’s concern, but Comey was more concerned about the ongoing investigation than any immediate risk that the Russians might blackmail Flynn. He agreed that Flynn appeared to be lying, but why? What was it about his relationship with Kislyak he needed to conceal from others in the incoming administration? The fact of the lie added more fuel to the Flynn investigation. He persuaded Yates to hold off at least until the inauguration.
* * *
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THAT SAME MONTH, Bill Priestap, the head of counterintelligence overseeing Crossfire Hurricane, approached McCabe about another sensitive matter. Priestap said an analyst—Jonathan Moffa—had brought to his attention that Page and Strzok were spending a lot of time together, and he worried Page was “monopolizing” Strzok’s time. The analyst suspected the two were having an affair. Partly out of those concerns, Priestap had reduced Strzok’s responsibilities, leaving him in charge only of domestic U.S. witnesses. He’d assigned another agent, Jennifer Boone, to oversee foreign ones.
Priestap also took his concerns directly to Strzok. He didn’t ask him point-blank if he and Page were having an affair. As Priestap later said, “We all have our personal lives,” and “I’m not the morality police.” Still, he wanted Strzok to be aware that people were talking and that the impression they were having an affair was “out there.”
While “there’s no FBI policy that says you can’t have an affair, and if you do, you’re going to be punished,” Priestap worried that in the extraordinarily sensitive circumstances of the Russia investigation, an affair, or even a perception of one, could make Strzok “vulnerable” to a foreign intelligence service. “This better not interfere with things, if you know what I mean,” Priestap warned Strzok. “To me, the mission is everything,” Priestap later explained.*
McCabe told Page that Priestap had brought up the issue. “I know you and Pete are friends, but you have to be more careful,” he said. “People are talking, and this isn’t good for you.”
Page was acutely embarrassed, mortified that the issue had even come up, especially because the affair was now over. They were still friends, and still texting, at least until June, when Page finally cut off the exchange. She denied the two were romantically involved or had had an affair.
Priestap hadn’t discussed the issue with Page; she reported to McCabe, not him. But Page sought him out and said she thought splitting responsibilities between Strzok and Boone was a mistake. She told him she hoped it wasn’t because of the rumors of an affair, which weren’t true.
Priestap felt uncomfortable discussing anything so personal with Page. But he was firm about the division of responsibilities and kept the witnesses
divided between Strzok and Boone. At least Page thought the rumors had been laid to rest. And she and Strzok were more careful—or so they thought.
* * *
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INAUGURATION DAY, January 20, was a bleak, rainy day in the nation’s capital, and the tone of Trump’s address matched the leaden skies. Wearing a wide bright red tie, the new president looked grim as he lambasted the ruling elite and made none of the usual pleas for national unity. The speech lasted just sixteen minutes.
Wearing the campaign’s signature MAGA caps, Trump supporters thronged the National Mall, though just how many became the first controversy of the new administration. Independent estimates ranged from 300,000 to 600,000 people, far fewer than Obama had attracted four years earlier. Trump claimed the media deliberately minimized the crowd size. From his vantage point, the crowd “looked like a million-and-a-half people,” he said, and “went all the way back to the Washington Monument.”
* * *
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ON SUNDAY AFTERNOON, January 22, President Trump hosted a reception at the White House Blue Room for law enforcement officers who worked on the inauguration, and at the insistence of his staff Comey went, albeit reluctantly. He didn’t want to give any impression that he and Trump were personally close, which meant avoiding one-on-one encounters or photos of him with the president. He positioned himself at the far end of the room from the entrance, near a window overlooking the South Lawn. He hoped his blue suit would blend in with the draperies.
Trump and his entourage entered with a blaze of lights, surrounded by TV cameras and photographers. The event was clearly being mounted as a publicity gambit.
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