The Shadow President

by Michael D'Antonio

  Dickerson turned to Pence and welcomed him to the program. Pence flashed a smile. The crow’s-feet that framed his eyes added extra twinkle to his face. The host then noted that the Republican senator who chaired the foreign relations committee was going to conduct an investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Pence, as he had when he became governor, hailed the peaceful transition of power that was about to take place and then declared that authorities had discovered “no evidence of any impact on voting machines” from the Russian effort. Pence’s comment was not particularly relevant; voting machines are decentralized, and hacking would be difficult to effect a difference in the outcome of the U.S. election. Pence knew, however, that the U.S. intelligence community had reported a week earlier that Russian intelligence did hack into state and local electoral systems and that “Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.”19

  Dickerson then asked whether, given the Senate inquiry that had been announced by a member of the president’s own party, Trump still considered the concern over the issue a “witch hunt.” Here was Pence’s chance to agree that a legitimate controversy existed. He looked down at the table in front of him and then offered, along with some sighs and shakes of his head, a condemnation of the president’s favorite enemy, the news media.

  “I think that”—sigh—“there frankly has just been an effort by many in the national media, present company excepted, since this election to essentially demean and question the legitimacy of this incoming administration. And talk of that—sources within the intelligence community have been attributed with sharing that information, public officials—I think has been a real disservice to our democracy.” Pence went on to say that Trump, who fell 2.9 million votes short in the popular balloting and gained office through the quirks of the electoral college, had won the election by a “landslide.”

  It was, in its clumsy syntax as well as its argument, the kind of statement Trump would have made himself: Reporters and the intelligence officials who were warning of trouble were bad actors. They didn’t respect the president-elect’s sweeping victory. These were the people, and not the Russians, who bombarded the country with propaganda and constituted the real threat to democracy. For good measure, Pence even threw in a comment about how soon he and Trump would start to “make America great again”: very soon.

  Not satisfied, Dickerson asked, “Did any advisor or anyone in the Trump campaign have any contact with the Russians, who were trying to meddle in the election?”

  “No, of course not, and I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors trafficked in a memo produced as opposition research.” He was referring of course to files handed to U.S. intelligence officials by Christopher Steele, a former British MI6 officer who specialized in Russia and who had been commissioned first during the 2016 GOP presidential primaries by Paul Singer, a hedge fund billionaire and “Never Trump” Republican. Singer dropped the research effort after Trump won the Republican presidential nomination, and Steele then began to work on behalf of the Democrats. Steele’s dossier, which included startling raw material indicating that Russians had information about Trump that could be used to blackmail him, had been leaked to the press. Steele was well known and respected by U.S. intelligence officials, and his reporting was a valuable addition to ongoing U.S. investigations of Russian attacks on the election campaign. President Obama had authorized briefing Trump about Steele’s dossier.

  Trump, who told lie after lie during the campaign, had refused to acknowledge charges of Russian meddling and denigrated the intelligence community for even raising such suspicions. Defending Trump before this national audience, Pence insisted that Trump’s mere presence in the White House would improve America’s standing in the world. The vice president elect glowed with admiration as he spoke about how happy he was “to literally be sitting side by side with him. He’s done hundreds of interviews and attracted men and women of extraordinary caliber to this cabinet.”

  As for General Flynn and the Russian ambassador, Pence said, “What I can confirm, having spoken to him about it, is that 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.”

  “But that still leaves open the possibility that there might have been other conversations about the sanctions,” said Dickinson.

  “I don’t believe there were more conversations,” replied Pence.20

  With his practiced calm demeanor and steady voice, Pence had followed Trump’s lead and would keep going in this direction for more than a year. As far as the Trump team and Russia were concerned, there was nothing to worry about.

  Pence repeated these claims later in the day in a Fox News interview, in which reporter Chris Wallace asked if anyone in the Trump campaign had been in contact with Russians. “Of course not,” said Pence. “Why would there be any contacts between the campaign and Russia?”

  “Did members of the Trump campaign meet with Russian officials?” asked Wallace.

  “All the contacts by the Trump campaign and associates were with the American people,” Pence said. “We were fully engaged with taking his message to ‘Make America Great Again’ all across the country.”

  * * *

  A day before the inauguration, Pence called a news conference to praise and take credit for the transition process of the incoming Trump administration. “Seventy-one days ago, Donald Trump set an ambitious schedule prior to this inauguration, and he asked me to chair the transition effort,” Pence said. And as usual, he added, “I was grateful and honored to be given the opportunity to do just that.”

  While he said that hundreds of “beachhead” officials would be “reporting for duty” the following day, the Trump administration—and the transition under Pence—was running far behind previous administrations in filling key posts. Pence’s other main claim about the transition effort was false. He said that $1.2 million of $6 million allocated in the federal budget for the presidential transition would be returned to the U.S. Treasury. The General Services Administration told the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity that in addition to the $6 million provided from taxpayer funds, the Trump transition raised private money as well. Any amount left over went to rental costs for the Trump transition offices, according to the GSA.21

  Late on the morning of Friday, January 20, 2017, Mike Pence was sworn in as the forty-eighth vice president of the United States. The ceremony took place on the West Front of the Capitol, which was not his favorite side—he preferred the natural lighting cast on the East Front of the Capitol. But then again, were he to become president one day, he might have another shot, in which he could change the venue. At noon, Donald Trump took the oath of office, with now former president Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter looking on. Trump’s inaugural address included ominous notes about “American carnage,” and a bleak assessment of recent history that provoked George W. Bush’s purported reaction: “Weird shit.” Trump would spend subsequent days arguing that the crowd in attendance was far bigger than the photographic evidence clearly showed.

  Retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn was also on the inauguration stand and was seen sending text messages from his phone during the ceremony. A confidential source told House Intelligence investigators that one message went to a colleague, saying that Russia sanctions were about to be dropped, and a private business deal he was promoting on a Middle East nuclear power project was “good to go.” Two days after the inauguration Flynn was sworn in as Trump’s national security advisor. That same day, a news report said that U.S. intelligence had reported more substantial contact between Flynn and Kislyak than Mike Pence had claimed. Faced with questioning from reporters at his first regular White House news briefing two days after the inauguration, Sean Spicer repeated what Pence had said a week earlier: whatever Flynn and the Russian ambassador had discussed, they did not talk about th
e sanctions.

  Officials in the Justice Department and at U.S. intelligence agencies heard the White House denial with considerable distress. They had been debating what they should tell Trump and officials of his incoming administration about intercepted communications between Flynn and Kislyak. These proved that Flynn was lying. FBI director James Comey had argued before the inauguration that the briefing could wait. Now that Trump was president, Comey relented, and a plan of action developed.

  First, on Tuesday, January 24, FBI agents went to the White House to question Flynn, who repeated that he had not discussed the Obama sanctions with Kislyak. Flynn should have realized the Justice Department already had a recording, captured by surveillance technology, of their conversation.

  The next day, January 25, the FBI agents reported their interview findings to Sally Yates, the deputy attorney general who was running the Justice Department following the departure of Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

  On Thursday, January 26, 2017, Yates took a ride up Pennsylvania Avenue from the Department of Justice to the White House, where she provided White House counsel Donald McGahn with information about Flynn’s FBI interview and the available facts from intelligence intercepts. Yates said that this was a matter of national security—Flynn could be blackmailed by the Russians because of the discrepancy between his answers to FBI queries and the actual content of his talks with Kislyak. McGahn immediately told Trump about the proof of Flynn’s lies and of a specific warning from the highest law enforcement officer in the land that the United States was in danger of a security breach. Trump did nothing. Flynn remained at the job with full access to U.S. intelligence.

  Although vice presidents routinely receive the highest-level briefings on security issues, no one in the White House—neither Trump aides nor people close to Pence—reported what Pence had or had not heard. Leaks were rampant and regular from the people closest to Trump, but Pence’s staff prided itself on maintaining a unified front and avoiding leaks to the news media. Even this early in the administration, the argument was that Pence needed to be protected and isolated from information that could be damaging to the Trump presidency. Should Trump be impeached or resign, Pence would be well served by having the ability to plausibly deny knowledge of problems like Michael Flynn.

  For his part, Flynn continued to deny that he ever had discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador. Finally, on February 9, an official told reporters that Flynn was changing his story. Flynn, the spokesman said, “indicated that while he had no recollection of discussing sanctions, he couldn’t be certain that the topic never came up.”

  On February 10, Pence and Flynn were seen chatting and shaking hands at the White House. Flynn was amiable and looking straight ahead; Pence was serious and looked away from Flynn, but there was no hint of acrimony. Later on the same day, Trump fielded questions during an Air Force One flight to Florida, where he would spend the weekend at Mar-a-Lago. The New York Times and Washington Post were reporting that Flynn had lied about his contacts with Kislyak.

  “I don’t know about that,” Trump told reporters. “I haven’t seen it. What report is that? I haven’t seen that. I’ll look into that.”

  After the weekend, Trump came back to Washington. On the night of February 12, Flynn resigned, which, in Washingtonspeak, meant he was fired. His letter of resignation revealed for the first time that the vice president had been involved in the whole Kislyak mess from the start. The letter read:

  Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the vice president-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the president and the vice president, and they have accepted my apology.

  For a general who had tried to build a ramrod reputation for toughness and competence, Flynn’s resignation letter was notable for its excuses and shading. Deceptions were painted as “incomplete information,” and the “fast pace of events” was blamed for Flynn’s decision to pass off these deceptions as truth. He closed his letter in Trumpian fashion, praising himself. “I am tendering my resignation,” he wrote, “honored to have served our nation and the American people in such a distinguished way.” Trump let him get away with it all, saying that Flynn had to depart because news of his Kislyak contacts had leaked out to the public.

  Eighteen days had passed from Sally Yates’s warning to the White House and Michael Flynn’s firing as national security advisor. His letter absolved the vice president of any responsibility. “I was disappointed to learn that the facts that had been conveyed to me by General Flynn were inaccurate,” Pence said a few days later. “But we honor General Flynn’s long service to the United States of America, and I fully support the president’s decision to ask for his resignation. It was the proper decision. It was handled properly and in a timely way.”

  Chris Christie was back in New Jersey, a former governor fulminating about the mistakes made by the Trump administration, but still holding out for a job and calling Donald Trump his friend. If Christie felt vindicated on the day Michael Flynn was fired or when he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, he mostly kept it to himself. Months later, after Flynn admitted to breaking the law, Christie would say he had “no need to feel vindicated.” Christie added, “Suffice to say, I had serious misgivings, which I think have been confirmed by the fact that he pled guilty to a felony in federal court.”

  * * *

  For Mike Pence, the Flynn scandal was a burden on top of what was already an overstuffed portfolio. Traditionally, vice presidents are asked to oversee a few policy areas at most, and they may be expected to work closely with members of Congress. But presidents typically come to office knowing what they want to do, whom they want to hire, and how they will proceed. Donald Trump was not typical in this way or any other way, which meant that Pence would be asked to do much more. This fact had been noted by the president’s son Donald Jr., who had declared that Trump’s vice president (when he offered the job to John Kasich) would be “the most powerful vice president in history.” That was coming to be true. Indeed, while Trump chose Rex Tillerson to be secretary of state and rewarded Senator Jeff Sessions with the top post at the Department of Justice, he looked to Pence to recommend people to fill many top posts. The list was comprised of Pence supporters and cronies over the years, and a distinct number of them were Pence’s very own Hoosiers:

  • Seema Verma, who had worked in Indiana state government for Pence, became administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which together account for more than $1 trillion, or more than 25 percent of the government budget. Verma was a designer of the state Healthy Indiana medical program under Pence and his predecessor as governor, Mitch Daniels. Two other former Indiana staff members joined Verma at the CMS office. Brady Brooks became deputy chief of staff. Matt Lloyd, Pence’s former spokesman and close aide, was placed in charge of public affairs for Verma. Lloyd had returned to the government after a stint working as director of communications at Koch Industries.

  • Dr. Jerome Adams, his former Indiana state health commissioner, became United States surgeon general. Adams, an anesthesiologist, had defended Pence against complaints about his slow response to the HIV outbreak among drug users in Indiana.

  • Tom Price, who was Pence’s friend when they served together in Congress, became secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. A conservative antiabortion, anti-Medicare physician from Georgia, Price would be forced to resign for having spent at least $400,000 on excess travel.

  • Alex Azar, the president of Eli Lilly, based in Indianapolis, would be named to replace Price. Lilly was one of Pence’s major corporate campaign contributors.

  • Sonny Perdue, the former governor of Georgia, who became Trump’s secretary of agriculture, was related to the wife of Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers.

  • Dan Coats, Pence’s friend and former United States senator from Indiana, was named director of nati
onal intelligence.

  • Betsy DeVos of Michigan, the Amway billionaire and Pence’s longtime political benefactor (DeVos and her family gave thousands of dollars to Pence’s earlier political campaigns and more than $1 million to the Trump-Pence presidential campaign) became secretary of education.

  Health care policy and the billions of dollars involved could easily fall to Pence’s sphere of influence by default. Donald Trump was not interested in the details of governance and here Pence could coordinate his long-standing ideas on privatization of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, much in line with his former Republican colleagues in Congress.

  “The Trump people really didn’t have much to say about how we deal with Medicare or Medicaid or people who have no medical help,” said former senator Richard Lugar, a conservative stalwart who left the Senate in 2013. “So Pence had an opportunity here to come into the void and set up a program (similar to the Healthy Indiana program when he was governor) in Indiana that worked pretty well,” Lugar said. “It’s an area where the president really didn’t have strong views. He didn’t say: ‘Mike stay out of that.’ He may be indebted to Mike for getting into it, to offer at least a Republican solution or an alternative to what otherwise was a vacant part of public policy.”

  The same was the case with the choice of DeVos as education secretary.

  DeVos and her family were well known to Republicans in Congress. Among the GOP senators who would be required to vote on her nomination were twenty who had received a total of more than $800,000 in campaign contributions from DeVos and members of her family. However, she had no previous experience running a large bureaucracy, and her involvement with education had been limited to her advocacy for vouchers and other policies that would steer tax dollars away from public schools and into private ones.

  During DeVos’s confirmation hearing, Senator Bernie Sanders asked her how much she and her family had donated to Republican campaigns over time. Devos said she didn’t know. “I have heard the number was $200 million. Does that sound in the ballpark?” the senator asked. “Collectively.” “My entire family? That’s possible,” she answered with a bemused expression, not blinking an eye. This would be a fantastic sum in the eyes of some ordinary Americans, but as major benefactors for the GOP, the DeVoses could have easily contributed more.