Deep State

by James B. Stewart

  Priebus warned again that the Department of Justice and Congress would “turn their backs” on the president, but Trump brushed aside his concerns. When Priebus told McGahn about Trump’s directive to demand Sessions’s resignation, McGahn told him not to do it and told Priebus to consult his personal lawyer. They considered the possibility they’d both have to resign rather than carry out the president’s order.

  “Did you get it? Are you working on it?” Trump asked Priebus that afternoon. Priebus, buying time, said he’d get Sessions’s resignation but warned him Rosenstein and others at the Justice Department would likely quit, too, triggering a crisis and massive bad publicity. Trump agreed to hold off until after the Sunday news shows. To Priebus’s relief, he didn’t press the matter after that.

  But Trump didn’t give up his public attacks on Sessions. Starting Monday, he issued a series of tweets assaulting Sessions for not pursuing Clinton. He also took another swipe at McCabe:

  “So why aren’t the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillary’s crimes & Russia relations?”

  “Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are Emails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!”

  “Why didn’t A.G. Sessions replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a Comey friend who was in charge of Clinton investigation but got . . . big dollars ($700,000) for his wife’s political run from Hillary Clinton and her representatives. Drain the swamp!”

  Trump later unleashed another series of tweets and comments attacking Sessions, one of which—“I put in an Attorney General that never took control of the Justice Department”—prompted a rare response from Sessions.

  “I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in,” Sessions said in a prepared statement, and added, “While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.”

  The next day, the president tweeted, “‘Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.’ Jeff, this is GREAT, what everyone wants, so look into all of the corruption on the ‘other side’ including deleted Emails, Comey lies & leaks, Mueller conflicts, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr, FISA abuse, Christopher Steele & his phony and corrupt Dossier, the Clinton Foundation, illegal surveillance of Trump campaign, Russian collusion by Dems—and so much more. Open up the papers & documents without redaction? Come on Jeff, you can do it, the country is waiting!”

  But for the moment, Sessions had survived.

  * * *

  —

  EMBEDDED IN TRUMP’S barrage of tweets that July were two aimed at the “Amazon” Washington Post, one of his favorite targets now that Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos—someone far richer than Trump—had bought it. On July 23, he complained that “The Amazon Washington Post has gone crazy against me.” In the second, the same day, he seemed to threaten antitrust action:

  “In my opinion the Washington Post is nothing more than an expensive (the paper loses a fortune) lobbyist for Amazon. Is it used as protection against antitrust claims which many feel should be brought?”

  The Post responded that “Trump has made the false claim about The Post serving as a lobbyist for Amazon multiple times,” and said the newspaper operates with complete independence from Bezos.

  Ominously for McCabe, after two months of relative calm since Mueller’s appointment, he was again on the president’s radar: “Problem is that the acting head of the FBI & the person in charge of the Hillary investigation, Andrew McCabe, got $700,000 from H for wife!” Trump tweeted on July 25.

  McCabe heard about the tweet on the news; he didn’t follow Twitter or have an account. Putting aside the flagrant falsehood that McCabe himself had taken money from Hillary Clinton, the mere fact the president of the United States was attacking him personally and implying he’d done something corrupt came as a shock.

  McCabe’s wife, too, was upset. She blamed herself for running for office, taking money from McAuliffe, and somehow besmirching her husband’s career. McCabe tried to reassure her that those were just pretexts to undermine him. The real issue was the Russia investigation.

  Jim Baker called to ask if McCabe was okay.

  McCabe decided he’d try to make light of it. He began a meeting that morning by saying he hadn’t seen the news. “Anything new?” he asked. But his quip generated only some awkward laughter.

  * * *

  —

  HAVING FAILED TO deliver Sessions’s resignation, Priebus was soon ousted himself. On Friday, July 28, while sitting on the tarmac on Air Force One in Washington, Trump tweeted, “I would like to thank Reince Priebus for his service and dedication to his country. We accomplished a lot together and I am proud of him!”

  Priebus emerged from the plane in a driving rain, dashed to a waiting car, and left without further comment. “Reince is a good man,” Trump told reporters after he disembarked.

  Trump named John F. Kelly his new chief of staff. Just weeks later, Trump dispatched Bannon, too. For all his brash populism, Bannon had often been a voice of reason in curbing Trump’s impulses.

  The same rainy afternoon that Priebus was ousted, Lisa Page answered her phone at FBI headquarters, where she’d returned as special counsel to McCabe after completing her forty-five-day stint with Mueller. On the phone was Julie McConnell, a lawyer with the inspector general’s office. McConnell asked if Page could come in for an interview that day. Her tone sounded serious.

  “What are you looking at?” Page asked.

  “Potential political bias,” McConnell said.

  That was news to Page. She thought the inspector general was looking at leaks. “Can you tell me anything more?”

  “We’re looking at certain text messages that reveal potential political bias in the Hillary Clinton email investigation,” she said. “You’re not just a witness. You’re a subject,” McConnell added ominously.

  Page froze. “I’m sorry, I think I need to get a lawyer.”

  Her first impulse was to call McCabe. “Hey, I just got a call from the IG. I’m a subject, but about what?” she asked.

  “Stop, Lees,” McCabe said, using her nickname. “Stop talking.” He didn’t want to hear anything. He was a potential witness. “I just got a call, too. I’m going over this evening.”

  Page’s mind raced. She knew the inspector general had obtained text messages from her FBI-issued phone. She and Strzok had often discussed news and political developments, but she didn’t remember saying anything that might suggest bias.

  But that wasn’t what really terrified her. If they had the texts, then they knew about the affair.

  * * *

  —

  MCCONNELL AND TWO other lawyers were waiting when McCabe got to the inspector general’s office. Daniel Beckhard seemed in charge and did most of the questioning. McCabe went alone. When they’d called earlier asking him to come over, McCabe had said he didn’t feel comfortable testifying without a lawyer present, given that he was a subject of the leak investigation. But he’d been assured “it’s not about you. There’s something else we need to show you.” When he arrived, he reiterated that he wouldn’t discuss anything about himself. Beckhard told him that was fine.

  Stacked on a conference table were copies of thousands of Page’s and Strzok’s texts. After McCabe read a few, it was obvious that Page and Strzok had been romantically involved. They’d also made some intemperate political comments. McCabe knew it would be bad—bad for the FBI, bad for the special counsel, bad for him—and most of all catastrophic for Page and Strzok, two people he valued, respected, and considered friends.

  And he knew to a near certainty the texts would leak or be made public. They perfectly fit the Trump narrative that the FBI was biased and out to get him.

  The lawyers for the inspector ge
neral didn’t seem to be thinking about the implications. They were obsessively focused on decoding the often cryptic texts. They peppered McCabe with questions about what Page and Strzok meant. How was he supposed to know? McCabe said he didn’t want to speculate.

  Then the lawyers showed him text messages from Page dated October 27, 28, and 30, 2016—text messages sent to him. These were messages in which Page discussed the Wall Street Journal article and included the text to McCabe where Page said she felt “WAY less bad” about throwing Axelrod “under the bus in the forthcoming CF article.”

  Beckhard said they weren’t sure what CF related to, but perhaps it was the Clinton Foundation. “Do you happen to know?”

  “I don’t know what she’s referring to,” McCabe said.

  “Or perhaps a code name?”

  “Not one that I recall, but this thing is like right in the middle of the allegations about me, and so I don’t really want to get into discussing this article with you,” McCabe said.

  “Was she ever authorized to speak to reporters in this time period?” one of the lawyers asked; another was talking at the same time, which McCabe found confusing.

  As McCabe had already pointed out, the lawyers were now violating the assurance that he wouldn’t be questioned about his own role. But, reeling from the shock of the Page-Strzok texts, McCabe went ahead and answered, “Not that I’m aware of.” He hoped that would end it.

  Beckhard asked again about Page’s texts suggesting she was talking to Barrett, the Wall Street Journal reporter. “I was not even in town during those days,” McCabe answered. “So I can’t tell you where she was or what she was doing.”

  McCabe later said he felt “disconnected” from the questioning, worrying about the personnel crisis he’d just been handed and how he’d deal with it. As the questions mounted, he had the sense things were coming “unglued.”

  McCabe finally said he wouldn’t answer any more questions about himself. Before he left, the lawyers told him not to discuss the texts with Page and Strzok.

  * * *

  —

  WHILE SHE WAITED anxiously outside McCabe’s office, Page called Jim Baker and asked for suggestions for a lawyer, even though she didn’t know how she’d pay for one.

  As darkness fell, the top leadership gradually left their offices adjoining the same corridor. No one made eye contact with her. After about an hour, McCabe returned, looking grave. Page followed him into his office and sat on the sofa. McCabe took a seat in an adjacent chair.

  “Should I be stressed?” Page asked. “Or not stressed?”

  “You should be stressed,” McCabe answered.

  “Lisa, they have thousands of your text messages.” He held his hand above his knee to show high the stacks were. “It’s clear there was a personal relationship there.”

  Page nodded her head yes, looking down, fighting tears. “I’m sorry, Andy,” she said softly.

  “I know you are,” he said.

  There was nothing McCabe could say that would make her feel any worse than she felt at that moment.

  McCabe said he’d discuss her situation with Baker and other top officials, but she couldn’t stay as his special counsel. As she left the office, Page felt it was the worst day of her life.

  McCabe had already decided that Strzok could no longer remain on the Mueller team. It wasn’t because he felt Strzok had ever shown any political bias in his work—on the contrary. Nor was having an affair against any rules. But the fact that the inspector general was investigating bias—even if he eventually concluded there was none—would be used to undermine the credibility of the special counsel, especially in the intensely charged political environment of the moment. McCabe couldn’t take that risk.

  He called Strzok at home. As he placed the call, he realized he was about to upend Strzok’s career and marriage. McCabe didn’t realize that the same could be said of himself.

  * * *

  —

  MCCABE THOUGHT STRZOK took the bad news surprisingly well. When Page called Strzok the next day—breaking her silence with him—he was reassuring, telling her they’d both survive. Their affair wasn’t any of the government’s business. They were entitled to their political views and to express them in a private setting. Page thought that was naive. “You’re going to need a lawyer,” she said.

  Strzok met with Mueller the next day. Strzok understood that for appearances’ sake, he had to leave. Mueller seemed grave, deeply saddened at the loss of his top FBI agent.

  When he returned to the FBI, Dave Bowdich, the acting deputy, assigned Strzok to human resources, the equivalent of Siberia for someone who’d been one of the bureau’s brightest stars. Strzok had never been in anything but operations. Everyone knew something bad must have happened, but Bowdich told Strzok not to say anything. “This isn’t forever,” Bowdich told him. “Be a good soldier, work hard, and keep quiet. We don’t want to risk Trump getting this and blowing it up.”

  * * *

  —

  CHRISTOPHER WRAY WAS overwhelmingly confirmed to be the next FBI director by the Senate on August 1. That same day, McCabe phoned Beckhard at the inspector general’s office.

  Over the weekend, McCabe had been replaying the shocking events of the previous Friday. He said he wanted to correct any errors or misimpressions he might have made. McCabe explained that Page had dealt with the Wall Street Journal reporter, Barrett, on a previous article in an effort to correct inaccuracies. McCabe was out of town and “may have authorized” Page to talk to Barrett again “because she had previously worked with McCabe on the issues raised by his wife’s political campaign and was very familiar with those issues.” He added that Michael Kortan, the head of public affairs, “also knew about the situation.”

  Sessions swore in Wray as director at the FBI the next day as Wray’s wife and McCabe stood nearby. (Trump didn’t attend.) In a meeting with top leadership, Wray tried to put people at ease. He described himself as “somewhere between Jim Comey and Bob Mueller,” meaning he wasn’t as outgoing and gregarious as Comey but would be more open and communicative than Bob “Say Nothing” Mueller. He assured people he had no immediate plans for any personnel moves, which meant McCabe would stay on as deputy. But McCabe told him, as he had Sessions and Rosenstein, that he planned to retire when he became eligible in March.

  * * *

  —

  SINCE THE TERRIBLE day McCabe learned about the texts, Lisa Page had trouble sleeping. Already thin, she lost over fifteen pounds. Still, she showed up for work. McCabe had agreed that she could work under Jim Baker. It was meaningful work and she felt safe there, at least for the time being. She knew there was rampant speculation about her sudden move, but she kept her head down and tried to ignore it.

  Even though she was now a subject of the inspector general’s investigation, Page wasn’t unduly concerned when FBI inspectors met with her on August 7. Page thought they were still looking in to the Circa News leak, so she didn’t bring her lawyer. She was surprised when they suddenly asked about the Wall Street Journal article instead. “But that’s an entirely new topic,” she protested.

  “Are you familiar with it?”

  “Yes. I talked to the reporter,” Page readily acknowledged. She didn’t think it was a secret.

  The lawyers looked stunned. “You did?”

  Page told them the whole saga. She’d been authorized to do so by McCabe, and Kortan had been on both calls to the reporter with her, so he also knew about it.

  Page signed a sworn statement to that effect a week later and turned over her notes of the conversation with Barrett.

  This, of course, flatly contradicted McCabe’s prior statements. McCabe had already clarified his answers to the inspector general, and he reached out to do the same with the FBI lawyers. On August 18, he met with them, and they showed him the article again. According to their interview memo, McC
abe “looked at it, and he read it. And as nice as could be, he said yep. Yep, I did, although he said he did not recall specifically doing it.” McCabe “took responsibility, or he took ownership of it,” and said he was “okay with it.”

  One of the lawyers, Mark Morgan, responded, “We put a lot of work into this based on what you’ve told us. I mean, even long nights and weekends working on this, trying to find out who amongst your ranks of trusted people would, would do something like that.”

  McCabe just looked down, nodded, and said, “Yeah, I’m sorry.” He added, “There was a lot going on at the time.”

  The FBI lawyers turned over the information to the inspector general, who opened a formal investigation of McCabe two weeks later.

  * * *

  —

  ON A LATE summer Friday, Michael Cohen had breakfast near his weekend home in the Hamptons with Emily Jane Fox, a Vanity Fair reporter. After being subpoenaed by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees investigating Russia, he’d just submitted documents on the Trump Tower Moscow deal and written testimony, which he’d also released to the press. On display that morning was his legendary loyalty to Trump, which he seemed eager to talk about. Cohen lamented that his lawyer had banned him from speaking to Trump. “At times I wish I were there in D.C. more, sitting with him in the Oval Office, like we used to at Trump Tower, to protect him,” Cohen told Fox. “I feel guilty that he’s in there right now almost alone.” And later in the interview, he said, “I’m the guy who protects the president and the family. I’m the guy who would take a bullet for the president.”

  So it should have come as no surprise that Cohen was on “message” and toed the “party line” that Trump had laid down at his press conference the previous summer. “I assume we will discuss the rejected proposal to build a Trump property in Moscow that was terminated in January of 2016; which occurred before the Iowa caucus and months before the very first primary,” Cohen stated in his written testimony and later repeated under oath during the committee hearings—even though the project had not been “terminated” and was still under way months later. He added, “I’m very proud to have served Donald J. Trump for all these years, and I’ll continue to support him.”