and Clinton email investigation, 58–62, 77–78, 80, 83, 125–26
and Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting, 73
and Comey’s notification on Clinton investigation, 124
and Crossfire Hurricane investigation, 93
fired as Deputy AG, 162–63
and Flynn investigation, 168
and Flynn’s resignation, 171
and Ohr’s background, 94
and Russian interference investigation, 152, 157–58, 163
and Trump’s travel ban, 163, 165
Zebley, Aaron, 234, 236–37
Zeleny, Jeff, 7
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James B. Stewart is the author of Heart of a Soldier, the bestsellers Blind Eye and Blood Sport, and the blockbuster Den of Thieves. He is currently a columnist for the New York Times and a professor at Columbia Journalism School, and in 1988 he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the stock market crash and insider trading.
* Comey even had a Twitter account using the name Reinhold Neibuhr. After internet sleuths identified it as his, he opened an account using his real name.
* Lynch later testified that Comey must have misunderstood her, because “I didn’t direct anyone to use specific phraseology.”
* The chant might have begun with Michael Stoker, a California delegate and ardent Trump supporter later named to an Environmental Protection Agency post. Stoker posted a video on Facebook showing him leading a group of delegates in the chant during Christie’s remarks. “Trump Pick to Run Mediation Service Lands at EPA. What Happened?,” Bloomberg Law, May 30, 2018.
* The contents of the cable and exactly how it reached the FBI remain classified information. In a series of Twitter posts, and in a subsequent book, Papadopoulos maintained that Downer and Thompson were Australian spies working to discredit Trump. He also claimed Downer secretly recorded their conversation. Nothing has emerged to support those claims, and Downer denied recording him. The claims also seem inconsistent with the fact the Australians did nothing with the information until after WikiLeaks released the Clinton-related emails.
* After the press conference, Trump asked Cohen about Trump Tower Moscow, indicating he was well aware of the project at the time of the press conference. When Cohen told him it was “going nowhere,” Trump responded, “Too bad.” But after the election, the project appeared on a list of Trump Organization projects that needed to be “closed out.”
* The code name was a reference to a Rolling Stones lyric from “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” which begins, “I was born in a cross-fire hurricane.” The line refers to Keith Richards’s 1943 birth just outside London during the Nazi’s World War II bombing campaign.
* Axelrod has said he was simply stating long-standing Justice Department policy regarding elections.
* The FBI declined to identify the New York case agent who discovered the Clinton emails on Weiner’s laptop and agitated to pursue the investigation.
* Rybicki said he didn’t recall using the term “survivable” or suggesting Comey might be asked to resign or be fired.
* Rtskhiladze later said he was told the tapes were “fake,” but didn’t mention that to Cohen. Nor did he explain how he had “stopped” them.
* All the President’s Men is the book by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein chronicling the Watergate scandal and the fall of President Richard Nixon.
* Trump had occasionally used the phrase “witch hunt” before, notably to describe the investigation of Trump University in 2013 and charges of sexual harassment against his friend the former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain in 2011. The phrase had been widely used to describe Senator Joseph McCarthy’s pursuit of suspected communists, which might have resonated with Trump, given his close relationship with McCarthy’s chief counsel, Roy Cohn.
* Strzok later denied that the affair posed any security risk. He testified that had any foreign agent ever approached him about it, he would have promptly reported the approach and the affair to his superiors.
* The so-called Bridgegate scandal, over the closing of lanes leading to the George Washington Bridge. Christie was never charged with any wrongdoing.
*An enduring mystery is the identity of any of the “countless” FBI employees whom the White House “heard from,” in Sanders’s account, or who contacted Trump to communicate how happy they were that Comey had been fired, as Trump repeatedly claimed, or even whether such employees exist.
* James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, had testified on May 8 that he wasn’t aware of any evidence of collusion during his tenure, not that it didn’t exist.
* In later testimony, Baker described McCabe as “sort of stunned, surprised, didn’t know how to really react” to the suggestion that Rosenstein wear a wire. There was no doubt in McCabe’s mind that Rosenstein was serious.
* Gertrude Stein coined the phrase “There is no there there” to describe her hometown of Oakland, California.
* The reference is to Thomas à Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury who refused to bow to the king’s will and was murdered by four of the king’s knights in Canterbury Cathedral after Henry II expressed a wish to be rid of him. The line “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” is used in the 1964 film Becket. While Henry’s exact words aren’t known, the phrase conveys the sense that a ruler’s wish is a command, and thus was an apt analogy for Comey.
* Karl obviously meant to ask: “Did you ask for a loyalty pledge from him?”
* McGahn later testified that both calls from the president occurred on June 17. However, phone records show only one call that day and another on June 14. McGahn said it was possible Trump’s demands to get rid of Mueller took place in those two calls.
* According to The Washington Post. Mr. Magoo starred in a 1950s cartoon series. Mr. Peepers was the mild-mannered, bespectacled schoolteacher in an eponymous 1950s sitcom. Both characters did, in fact, physically resemble Sessions and Rosenstein. But Trump denied ever using the nicknames or even knowing who the characters were. “Why Trump Denies Calling Sessions and Rosenstein ‘Mr. Magoo’ and ‘Mr. Peepers,’” Vox, April 23, 2018.
* Lewandowski gave the notes to a White House staff member and asked him to take them to Sessions, but no one ever did.
* Dowd was furious the recording was made public, and accused Mueller of trying to “smear and damage the reputation of counsel and innocent people.”
* The New York Times actually broke the story of Strzok’s removal over the texts but said nothing about an affair, even though Times reporters knew about it. See “A Top FBI Agent Taken Off Inquiry,” New York Times, December 3, 2017.
* Bannon said Trump picked up the phrase from watching Sean Hannity. Bannon himself mocked the use of the phrase and said it was ridiculous.
* None of this was known to the public, however, until April 30, when The Washington Post reported on and published the text of Mueller’s letter.
* The Praetorian Guard was the elite unit of the Imperial Roman Army that protected the emperor. It later engaged in political intrigues, in some cases overthrowing emperors and choosing their successors, starting with the assassination of Caligula in AD 41.
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