Deep State

by James B. Stewart

  Had he been so inclined, this would have been the perfect moment to deliver what Trump so desperately wanted, which was a statement he wasn’t under investigation. But all Comey said was, “I don’t want people to over-interpret this answer, I’m not going to comment on anyone in particular, because that puts me down a slope of—because if I say no to that then I have to answer succeeding questions. So what we’ve done is brief the chair and ranking on who the U.S. persons are that we’ve opened investigations on. And that’s—that’s as far as we’re going to go, at this point.”

  “But as a former prosecutor, you know that when there’s an investigation into several potentially culpable individuals, the evidence from those individuals and the investigation can lead to others, correct?” Blumenthal pressed.

  “Correct,” Comey answered. “We’re always open-minded about—and we follow the evidence wherever it takes us.”

  “So potentially, the President of the United States could be a target of your ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign’s involvement with Russian interference in our election, correct?”

  Comey was a little tongue-tied. “I just worry—I don’t want to answer that—that—that seems to be unfair speculation. We will follow the evidence, we’ll try and find as much as we can and we’ll follow the evidence wherever it leads.”

  Blumenthal, too, asked about the email case: “Do you have any regrets or are there any things you would do differently in connection with either the comments you made at the time you closed the investigation or when you then indicated to Congress that you were in effect reopening it?”

  “The honest answer is no,” Comey replied. “I’ve asked myself that a million times because, Lordy, has this been painful. The only thing I regret is maybe answering the phone when they called to recruit me to be FBI director when I was living happily in Connecticut.” He continued, “I’ve gotten all kinds of rocks thrown at me and this has been really hard but I think I’ve done the right thing at each turn. I’m not on anybody’s side. So hard for people to see that. But I—look, I’ve asked that a million times. Should you have done this, should you have done that, and I—the honest answer—I don’t mean to sound arrogant—I wouldn’t have done it any differently. Somehow I’d have prayed it away, wished it away, wished that I was on the shores of the Connecticut sounds, but failing that I don’t have any regrets.”

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  COMEY TESTIFIED FOR nearly four hours, wrapping up about 2:00 p.m. At the White House, where Sessions, McGahn, and Sessions’s chief of staff, Jody Hunt, were meeting with the president, Trump asked how Comey had done. McGahn told him Comey had declined to say whether the president himself was under investigation. Trump was visibly enraged and turned his ire toward Sessions.

  “This is terrible, Jeff,” Trump exclaimed. “It’s all because you recused. AG is supposed to be the most important appointment. Kennedy appointed his brother. Obama appointed Holder. I appointed you and you recused yourself. You left me on an island. I can’t do anything.”

  He added, “I have foreign leaders saying they are sorry I am being investigated.”

  Sessions defended himself as best he could. He didn’t have any choice; the law required that he step aside. Sessions tried to shift the focus to Comey, suggesting Trump needed a “new start” at the FBI and he should consider replacing Comey.

  * * *

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  TRUMP WAS STILL fuming the next day. He complained repeatedly to Steve Bannon that Comey had “told me three times I’m not under investigation. He’s a showboater. He’s a grandstander. I don’t know any Russians. There was no collusion.”

  Bannon warned Trump that it was too late to fire Comey. “That ship had sailed,” Bannon said. And in any event, it wouldn’t do any good. The president could fire the FBI director, but he couldn’t fire the FBI.

  That afternoon, Comey met with Rosenstein at the Justice Department, at Rosenstein’s request, and gave him some advice about his new job, because Comey had served in the same capacity. Among other topics, Comey urged him to make sure he got enough sleep and exercise. Rosenstein didn’t say anything about Trump, but Comey, alluding to Trump’s penchant for one-on-one contacts, said that “one of your folks is going to have to straighten out the relationship between the White House and Department of Justice.”

  Rosenstein thanked him profusely for the advice. He didn’t give any hint that trouble might be brewing at the White House.

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  IT WAS POURING rain that Friday evening when Trump arrived by helicopter at his Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump National Golf Club. Stephen Miller, who was one of Trump’s closest advisers, the architect of much of his populist agenda, and Jared Kushner joined him for dinner in the neo-Georgian clubhouse with its large white pillars.

  Since leaving the White House that afternoon, Trump had made up his mind.

  Miller took notes as Trump dictated a draft of a letter to Comey. “While I greatly appreciate you informing me that I am not under investigation concerning what I have often stated is a fabricated story on a Trump-Russia relationship pertaining to the 2016 presidential election,” Trump began, “please be informed that I, and I believe the American public—including Ds and Rs—have lost faith in you as Director of the FBI.”

  Fearful of leaks from within the White House, Trump swore everyone to secrecy.

  Miller used his notes to come up with a draft letter, which Trump edited throughout the weekend (he had time on his hands after a round with the golfing great Greg Norman was rained out). Trump also watched Comey’s May 3 testimony on television (or at least parts of it), which only angered him even more.

  As Trump had directed, the letter began by stating, “While I greatly appreciate your informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation concerning the fabricated and politically-motivated allegations of a Trump-Russia relationship with respect to the 2016 Presidential Election, please be informed that I, along with members of both political parties and, most importantly, the American Public, have lost faith in you as the Director of the FBI and you are hereby terminated.”

  With its convoluted syntax it was hardly a model of efficient prose, nor was the rest of the letter, which ran to four pages. It faulted Comey’s May 3 testimony, his handling of the Clinton email investigation, and his failure to identify and hold leakers accountable. The letter said Comey had asked Trump to keep him on as FBI director and that Trump had said he would “consider” it. But the president had concluded he had “no alternative” but to find a new leader for the FBI “that restores confidence and trust.”

  The letter accomplished several Trump objectives: It finally got on the public record that Trump wasn’t being investigated. It enabled Trump to reiterate his anger over leaks. It tapped into Democratic anger at Comey over the email investigation, affording Trump some bipartisan cover.

  No one that weekend took issue with Trump’s decision to fire Comey or seemed to anticipate that it might prompt a political firestorm. On the contrary, Trump seemed to think that Comey was genuinely unpopular, both inside the FBI and with the public at large, and that his decision would be met with applause.

  Despite Trump’s admonition, Miller didn’t want Priebus to be blindsided, so he called Priebus to say that Trump had been thinking about the “Comey situation” and there would be an important discussion about it at the White House the next day.

  As it turned out, it wasn’t much of a discussion. Trump summoned Priebus, McGahn, Miller, and members of their staffs. “I’m going to read you a letter,” he began. “Don’t talk me out of this. I’ve made my decision.” He then read the opening paragraphs of the letter firing Comey that he and Miller had drafted. Trump added that Miller had researched the issue, and he was free to terminate Comey without cause.

  No one pushed back on the idea. But in an effort to at l
east slow things down, McGahn suggested that he and other White House lawyers confer with Sessions and the newly confirmed Rosenstein.

  When the delegation from the Justice Department arrived at noon, McGahn broke the news that Trump was going to fire Comey. Neither Sessions nor Rosenstein objected or seemed all that surprised, and they piled on with their own criticisms of Comey. Their reactions reassured McGahn; no one, for example, suggested that firing Comey might be considered obstruction of justice.

  At 5:00 p.m., the group met with the president, who said he’d watched Comey’s testimony over the weekend. Something’s “not right” with Comey, Trump maintained. He asked for Sessions’s and Rosenstein’s recommendation, and both concurred that Comey should be removed. Sessions said he’d already made that suggestion, and Rosenstein criticized Comey’s handling of the Clinton case.

  The only issue was how to handle it. Trump handed out copies of his letter drafted over the weekend. McGahn suggested that Comey be allowed the more graceful option of resignation, but Trump firmly overruled him: he wanted him fired. Trump seemed to like the idea that Sessions and Rosenstein draft a letter and memorandum urging Trump to fire Comey, making it look as if the president were simply responding to a Justice Department suggestion. He told Rosenstein to draft the memo, which he wanted to see first thing in the morning. “Put the Russia stuff in the memo,” Trump directed.

  Rosenstein disagreed, because his argument for removing Comey had nothing to do with Russia. Trump said he’d “appreciate it” if Rosenstein put it in anyway.

  After the meeting, Rosenstein told colleagues that his reasons for firing Comey were not the same as the president’s.

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  AS HIS FATE was being decided at the White House, Comey himself was a continent away, preparing for his visit to the Los Angeles field office. McCabe was in charge at headquarters.

  On the afternoon of May 9, two agents from the FBI’s internal inspection division stopped by to interview him about the multiple leaks that had plagued the bureau. The mystery of Giuliani’s sources had never been solved. Other instances, too, were under investigation, including a story about a McCabe staff meeting that had appeared in Circa News, a website owned by the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group—an investigation that McCabe himself had ordered. But when the two agents had settled at the conference table in his office, their questions shifted to the now-all-but-forgotten October 30 Wall Street Journal story, which contained Axelrod’s claim that McCabe had ordered FBI agents to “stand down” on the Clinton Foundation investigation until after the election. Expecting questions about Circa News, McCabe was surprised. The agents produced a copy of the article to refresh his memory, which McCabe quickly reviewed and initialed.

  Since that story appeared, leaks had become a near obsession at the White House, in Congress, and even within the FBI itself. McCabe himself had repeatedly admonished the New York office over leaks. Comey had expressed his dismay over what appeared to be a leak in the Journal article.

  McCabe said the article was accurate but that he “had no idea where it came from” and he hadn’t authorized anyone to disclose it, according to notes of the interview. McCabe had described the August 12 call from Axelrod to numerous people, suggesting the agents “would not get anywhere” by asking who else might have known about the call.

  The agents concluded that McCabe “had not personally shared that information with the media, and he considered it a leak.” They left about five minutes later, and McCabe was soon engulfed in far more consuming matters.

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  ROSENSTEIN’S MEMO HAD duly landed on Trump’s desk that morning. It was addressed to the attorney general with the heading “Subject: Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI.”

  Despite some obligatory nods to Comey as an “articulate and persuasive speaker about leadership and the immutable principles of the Department of Justice,” it was a searing indictment of the FBI director, all the more surprising given Rosenstein’s long-professed admiration for him.

  “I cannot defend the Director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken,” Rosenstein wrote. Ignoring the bipartisan praise Comey had reaped after his July 5 announcement (not to mention the warm reception Rosenstein himself gave Comey, or Trump’s praise for Comey’s October 28 letter), Rosenstein continued, “Almost everyone agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.”

  The Director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General’s authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution. It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement. At most, the Director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors. . . .

  [Despite] a well-established process for other officials to step in when a conflict requires the recusal of the Attorney General, . . . the Director announced his own conclusions about the nation’s most sensitive criminal investigation, without the authorization of duly appointed Justice Department leaders.

  Compounding the error, the Director ignored another longstanding principle: we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation. Derogatory information sometimes is disclosed in the course of criminal investigations and prosecutions, but we never release it gratuitously. The Director laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial. It is a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.

  Rosenstein cited a list of legal experts who, with benefit of hindsight, now faulted Comey’s judgment:

  I agree with the nearly unanimous opinions of former Department officials. The way the Director handled the conclusion of the email investigation was wrong. As a result, the FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a Director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them. Having refused to admit his errors, the Director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions.

  The memo made no mention of Russia. Nor had Trump ever expressed any concern about Comey’s departures from Justice Department norms in the email case—only that he’d reached the wrong conclusion in recommending Clinton not be charged. So it’s surprising that Trump told McGahn he liked the memo, as well as Sessions’s brief letter that accompanied it.

  That came as a relief to lawyers in McGahn’s office, who were appalled by the letter Trump and Miller had drafted. At least Rosenstein’s memo avoided the subject of the Russia investigation, and in that regard was a vast improvement. Trump’s and Miller’s original letter was “not to see the light of day,” and it was better to offer “no other rationales” beyond those cited in Rosenstein’s memo, according to notes from McGahn’s chief of staff. One note even asked, “Is this the beginning of the end” of Trump’s presidency?

  None of that deterred Trump from publicizing the fact that he wasn’t under investigation. He ordered Miller to include in a new cover letter that Comey had informed the president three times that he was not under investigation. McGahn and Priebus both objected, but Trump overruled them. James Burnham, a lawyer in McGahn’s office, noted that that was “the only line the President cared about.” He was determined to make the point that Comey had repeatedly denied him.

  At about 5:00 p.m., Spicer was summoned to the Oval Office and handed a statement that Trump himself had dictated:

  Today, President Donald J. Trump informed FBI Director James Comey that he has been terminated and removed from office.

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  FOX NEWS CHEERED the news and embraced Trump�
��s stated rationale. On his show that evening, the Fox host Sean Hannity blasted Comey as “a national embarrassment” who “has failed you, the American people, on a spectacular level” by not subjecting Hillary Clinton to “the criminal prosecution she deserves.” The Fox commentator Jesse Watters called Comey “corrupt” for not going after Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

  The Wall Street Journal editorial page, indulging its long-standing disdain for Comey, praised the decision and headlined an editorial “Comey’s Deserved Dismissal”:

  The reality is that Mr. Comey has always been most concerned with the politics of his own reputation. He styles himself as the last honest man in Washington as he has dangled insinuations across his career about the George W. Bush White House and surveillance, then Mrs. Clinton and emails, and now Mr. Trump and Russia. He is political in precisely the way we don’t want a leader of America’s premier law-enforcement agency to behave.

  But they were exceptions. The major networks and digital and print media nearly all raised questions about why Comey was fired, and many featured congressional critics like the Senate Judiciary Committee member Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat. “No one should accept President Trump’s absurd justification that he is now concerned that FBI Director Comey treated Secretary Clinton unfairly,” Leahy said in a statement. “This is nothing less than Nixonian.”

  Representative John Conyers of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to both Rosenstein and McCabe demanding that the Justice Department and the FBI preserve all documents relating to both Comey’s dismissal and the Russia investigation. “The Trump administration cannot be allowed to interfere any further in this investigation,” the letter said. “Nothing less than the integrity of our leading independent law enforcement agency and the credibility of our democracy are at stake.”