DeVos’s comments on education were troubling to many of the senators. She did not seem to understand questions about determining student proficiency (measuring performance based on standardized tests) versus growth (the progress of a student over the course of a year). She also had no knowledge of the federal civil rights law that protects students with disabilities. Most memorable was her answer to a question from Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy about whether she supported the presence of guns in schools. She said it depended on specifics, referring to a Wyoming school surrounded by a fence to keep bears out. “I would imagine there’s probably a gun in the school to protect from potential grizzlies,” she said.22
On the night before they voted on DeVos, the Democrats in the Senate kept the chamber open so they could air their objections to her nomination. “Betsy DeVos doesn’t believe in public schools,” said Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts during the all-night proceedings. “Her only knowledge of student loans seems to come from her own financial investments connected to debt collectors who hound people struggling with student loans, and despite being a billionaire, she wants the chance to keep making money on shady investments while she runs the Department of Education.”
All forty-eight Senate Democrats voted against DeVos. They were joined by two Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, who agreed that DeVos had no qualifications and was just a lobbyist for charter schools and right-wing causes. Republicans, regardless of what they said privately, were not going to buck the president. Neither would Mike Pence. In fact, as vice president, he possessed the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, and he would use it for the first time to help his friend.
Pence was ushered to the Senate rostrum as the votes were being cast. He received a quick primer on procedures required to preside over the Senate, then spoke from a script held before him by an aide. Some Senate members stood by, others were streaming out of the chamber, already having voted.
“On this vote,” Pence read, “the yeas are fifty, the nays are fifty. The Senate being equally divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative, and the nomination is confirmed.”
Pence’s vote was the first tiebreaker of any kind in the Senate since Vice President Richard B. Cheney had broken a tie in 2008. It marked the first time in the 227-year history of the U.S. Senate that a vice president cast the deciding vote for a cabinet appointment. Some hours later, Pence administered the oath of office to DeVos, who stood alongside family members, and praised his longtime friend and benefactor. The tie-breaking vote, he said, “was also casting a vote for America’s children. And I can tell you, my vote for Betsy DeVos was the easiest vote I ever cast.”
Pence would handle the ceremonial swearing in for most of the Trump cabinet members, not unprecedented for vice presidents in history. Vice presidents, in their positions as president of the Senate, also typically preside in swearing in new senators in their roles. Trump, who could if he chose, but did not, administer the oath himself, sometimes stood by as Pence administered the oath—he was there for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson but not in the case of DeVos. In each ceremony, Pence followed the same process. He welcomed each of the newcomers warmly and greeted their spouses and children. Family values were paramount for Pence, and it was on this basis that he regularly defended Trump after he said something outrageous. Trump and his family embraced Pence for such loyalty.
“I bring greetings from the president,” he would say at many of his early public appearances as vice president. “This is a good man—a man with values, who loves his family.”
In the spring of 2017, such reminders were often needed. Trump faced frequent charges of racial and ethnic insensitivity, and the issue of sexual harassment, raised frequently during the campaign, still hung over him. Pence stood by as the calm, moral voice, reminding Trump’s more religious supporters that Trump was a good man at heart and they could trust him. When he was with Trump, Pence flattered him, but this effort couldn’t always soothe the president’s temper. As the months passed and the FBI as well as committees investigated the Russia controversy, Trump seethed.
* * *
In May, President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr., traveled to Indianapolis to deliver the keynote address at the annual dinner of the Indiana Republican Party. About a year earlier, Indiana had voted solidly for his father and made the improbable a reality as Trump captured the GOP presidential nomination. In his remarks, he said the Indiana primary had been his family’s introduction to Mike Pence. Since then, the families had become very close, both politically and on a personal level. Pence, he said, genuinely “cares about what’s going on.”
To illustrate the Trump family’s connection to Pence, Donald Trump Jr. told a story about his younger brother Eric, who had called him a month earlier. Eric and his wife, Lara, were having their first child. “He goes, ‘Don, you know who the first call was?’ I go, ‘Dad?’ He goes, ‘Nope … It was Mike Pence.’”
“It’s not only a testament to the man,” Trump Jr. said of Pence, but also “to the type of people I got to know, have become friends with, and will continue to spend a lot of time with from this great state.” Trump Jr. did not mention, however, whether Trump Sr. eventually called as well.
Trump Jr.’s political message included a warning to Republicans about the future. The 2018 congressional elections were looming. Holding on to the GOP’s majorities in the House and Senate would be essential to the fulfillment of the Trump agenda. Unsaid, but also true, was the danger that Trump could face if the other party won control of either body. Committee chairmanships, which would empower them to investigate the administration and subpoena both documents and witnesses. A Democratic Congress could also start impeachment proceedings.
The reality of the danger to the presidency was palpable in Washington. The Russia scandal had not let up since the inauguration. President Trump was angry about the investigation into Michael Flynn and with news media attention being given to the eighteen-day gap between Sally Yates’s visit to the White House and Flynn’s departure. The FBI investigation was in the hands of Director James Comey, who had won Trump’s admiration in the waning days of the presidential campaign by announcing he was investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Trump and Clinton might have agreed on only one thing in life—that Comey’s announcement in October had tipped the scales toward Trump. But now Comey was pursuing all Russia leads. Trump had called in Comey in January for a private dinner and asked him to go easy on Flynn. “He’s a good guy,” said Trump. Comey was noncommittal. Trump repeatedly asked Comey to state publicly what he had implied strongly in private to the president: that Trump was not a target of the Russia investigation. Comey did not comply.
Days before Donald Jr.’s appearance in Indiana, Comey had testified in an open hearing before Congress about Flynn and the Russia investigation. He said he was concerned that his announcement about the Hillary Clinton investigation had affected the election. “Look, this is terrible. It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election.” When asked if he was concerned that Trump, as he had hinted, possessed tape recordings of their conversations, Comey said, “Lordy, I hope there are tapes.”
Trump spent the weekend of May 6 and 7 at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey. He was enraged by Comey’s testimony, especially the parts that seemed to impugn the legitimacy of the election. Comey had to go, he insisted, and he directed his aide Stephen Miller to write a draft letter that outlined why Comey should be fired. Back in Washington on Monday, Trump summoned Mike Pence, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, and White House counsel Donald McGahn to tell them he was ready to fire Comey. He showed them copies of the letter Miller had written for him.
For once, Pence was in Washington for a major development and could not say later that he did not attend the meeting. He did claim, however, that he had arrived late. Perhaps he hoped tardiness would serve as an excuse should trouble arise. None of those present—certa
inly not Pence himself—reported what, if anything, the vice president had said during the Comey meeting. However, McGahn urged Trump not to send the letter Miller had written.
On that same day, the question of what Pence knew about Michael Flynn—and when—was raised on Capitol Hill as Sally Yates was questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Yates said she had gone to warn Donald McGahn on January 26 about Flynn, partly because Flynn had apparently lied to Pence about his contacts with Russian ambassador Kislyak. “We felt like the vice president was entitled to know that the information he had been given and he was relaying to the American public wasn’t true.”
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, asked a follow-up question. “So what you’re saying is that General Flynn lied to the vice president?”
Yates replied, “That’s certainly how it appeared, yes, because the vice president went out and made statements about General Flynn’s conduct, which he said were based on what General Flynn had told him. And we knew that [what Pence said] just flat wasn’t true.”
As Washington buzzed with talk of the Trump team and Russia, the president summoned Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, who had been placed in charge of the Russia investigation after Sessions recused himself. (His recusal was based on his previous service to the Trump presidential campaign.) The president ordered that they produce a document that would outline reasons for firing Comey. The document was produced, under Rosenstein’s signature, as a memo to Sessions.
Rosenstein’s memo criticized not Comey’s work on the Russia scandal, which preoccupied Trump, but instead focused improbably on Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton investigation. He wrote that because of it, Comey had lost the trust of Congress and the American people.
The current FBI Director is an articulate and persuasive speaker about leadership and the immutable principles of the Department of Justice. He deserves our appreciation for his public service. As you and I have discussed, however, 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. Almost everyone agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.
Rosenstein suggested that Comey’s departure was the only viable option for the president, but he did not explicitly recommend the FBI director’s dismissal. “Although the President has the power to remove an FBI director,” he cautioned, “the decision should not be taken lightly.”
Rather than calling Comey himself, the president sent the FBI director notice he was fired in the form of a terse letter, which was delivered to the Justice Department by Trump’s security chief, Keith Schiller. “I have accepted their recommendation,” said Trump in reference to Rosenstein and Sessions, “and you are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately.”
White House strategists developed talking points to answer anticipated questions. Their main argument was that the president’s decision to fire Comey had come in response to Rosenstein, who was a man of great integrity. Pence was quick to use those talking points on the morning of Wednesday, May 10, at the Capitol as he emerged from a gathering of jittery Republican leaders.
“President Trump made the right decision at the right time to accept the recommendation of the deputy attorney general.… Let me be perfectly clear … the president has been told repeatedly he’s not under investigation, there is no evidence of collusion between the campaign and any Russians … let me be clear, that’s not what this is about … the president took strong and decisive leadership here to restore the confidence of the American people … strong and decisive leadership. Director Comey had lost the confidence of the American people … [Trump] took decisive action … I am grateful.”
Pence offered a bit of misdirection when asked if Trump had asked Rosenstein to write the memo.
“The new deputy attorney general,” Pence said with a chuckle, “he came to work two weeks ago; he is a man of extraordinary independence and integrity and a reputation in both political parties came to work … sat down and made the recommendation. I personally am grateful that we have a president who is willing to provide the kind of decisive leadership to take the recommendation” of Rosenstein, he added, finding his way back to the talking points.
It was not a surprise that Pence said repeatedly that he wanted to be “clear.” Of course, this was his unintended signal, like a bad poker player’s tell, that he was about to obfuscate. His performance did nothing to clear up any point about the real reasons behind Comey’s firing. In time, it would be revealed that Rosenstein was furious about how his memo was used as a pretext for firing Comey. This experience may well have motivated his choice of Robert Mueller, Comey’s mentor and predecessor at the FBI, to serve as the counsel who would take up the investigation.
Shortly after Pence spoke to reporters at the Capitol on May 10, the president welcomed Sergey Kislyak and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov to the White House. Earlier in the morning, an American reporter had called out to Lavrov at the State Department, arriving for a scheduled meeting with Rex Tillerson. Had the firing of Comey “cast a shadow” on the Washington visit? he asked. Lavrov responded with mock surprise. “Was he fired?” he asked. “You are kidding. You are kidding.”
At the White House, in an unprecedented act, American journalists were barred from the Oval Office for the Kislyak-Lavrov-Trump tête-à-tête, but the Russian government news agency, TASS, was allowed in to film the encounter. A White House summary of the meeting, issued afterward, included quotes from the president’s remarks to the Russians. “I just fired the head of the FBI,” said Trump. “He was crazy, a real nut job, I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” So much for Mike Pence’s statement about the reason for Comey’s dismissal.
Trump further undermined Pence’s false narrative in an interview on May 11 with Lester Holt on NBC. Comey, Trump said, “is a showboat, he’s a grandstander, the FBI has been in turmoil, you know that, I know that, everybody knows that.”
HOLT: Monday you met with the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
TRUMP: Right.
HOLT: Did you ask for a recommendation?
TRUMP: What I did is I was going to fire Comey. My decision. It was not …
HOLT: You had made the decision before they came into your office [to make their recommendation].
TRUMP: I—I was going to fire Comey. I—there’s no good time to do it, by the way. They …
HOLT: Because in your letter, you said …
TRUMP: They—they were …
HOLT: I—I accepted—accepted their recommendations.
TRUMP: Yeah, well, they also …
HOLT: So you had already made the decision.
TRUMP: Oh, I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.
HOLT: So there was …
TRUMP: They—he made a recommendation. He’s highly respected. Very good guy, very smart guy. And the Democrats like him. The Republicans like him. He had made a recommendation. But regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey knowing there was no good time to do it. And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself—I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.
Mike Pence said nothing about how he was contradicted by the president. In the months to come, he would maintain his status as the most loyal member of the president’s inner circle, supporting virtually everything Trump said and did.
11
SHADOW PRESIDENT
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
—Isaiah 6:8
Like all vice presidents, who are elected mainly to ensure continuity should
the president be unable to serve, Mike Pence was concerned about his role. Uncertain about the influence and power he would hold, he cast about for an interest to nurture. He had always been interested in space, and Trump had pledged during the campaign that he would “revive” America’s space program. Allergic to anything done by his predecessor, Trump was not about to accept or endorse plans designed during the Obama administration for human missions to an asteroid in the 2020s and a manned Mars journey in the 2030s. However, he had no ideas of his own, save for Buck Rogers fantasies like the creation of a “Space Command” at the Defense Department. (The Pentagon had a well-established system for managing its space resources, and exploration was not part of its mission.)
Sensing an opening, Pence jumped the gun on Trump’s plan in March 2017 by saying that he would be the chairman of the long-dormant National Space Council, an advisory group that Pence’s fellow Hoosier, Vice President Dan Quayle, had led during the George H. W. Bush administration. The idea of having such a council was better on paper than in reality. In the past, members who were political appointees had clashed with officials at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, who were actual experts. Nevertheless, Trump did sign an order reestablishing the council and put Pence in charge. “Today’s announcement sends a clear signal to the world that we are restoring America’s proud legacy of leadership in space,” Trump said at a ceremony where he was surrounded by NASA officials and retired astronauts. “Our vice president cares very deeply about space policy, and for good reason. Space exploration is not only essential to our character as a nation but also our economy and our great nation’s security.”
The Shadow President Page 26