Facts and Fears

by James R. Clapper

  Watching all of this, I knew it would be very difficult for anyone still in government to contradict the president, and I recalled how helpful it had been when Mike Hayden had appeared on television to say the things I could not say as DNI. I decided that speaking out was another obligation I had, and so I agreed to appear on Meet the Press on Sunday, March 5.

  Early on Saturday, March 4—the day before my appearance—President Trump tweeted twice with a new conspiracy theory: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” and “How low has President Obama gone to tapp [sic] my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” So, of course, the first question Chuck Todd asked me the next day on the show was if I knew of a wiretap on Trump’s offices. “For the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI,” I replied, “there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign.” I said I wouldn’t necessarily know about law enforcement wiretaps, although I would know if a foreign-intelligence-related FISA warrant had been issued. I don’t think Chuck Todd was expecting so straight an answer, so he pursued the line of questioning.

  “And at this point, you can’t confirm or deny whether that exists?”

  “I can deny it.”

  “There is no FISA court order?”

  “No, not to my knowledge.”

  “Of anything at Trump Tower?”

  “No.”

  Chuck looked genuinely surprised and thought for a moment before replying, “Well, that’s an important revelation at this point. Let me ask you this. Does intelligence exist that can definitively answer the following question, whether there were improper contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials?” This question couldn’t be answered as easily, and I clarified that just because something had not been included as evidence in the IC assessment didn’t mean it hadn’t come to light since then. “There’s a lot of smoke,” Chuck observed, “but there hasn’t been that smoking gun yet. At what point should the public start to wonder if this is all just smoke?” I answered, “Well, that’s a good question. I don’t know. I do think, though, it is in everyone’s interest, in the current president’s interests, in the Democrats’ interests, in the Republicans’ interest, in the country’s interest, to get to the bottom of all this. Because it’s such a distraction. And certainly, the Russians have to be chortling about the success of their efforts to sow dissension in this country.”

  That was the crucial point I most wanted to make—we needed to know the facts of what happened—because the Russians were going to attack us again, and the next time, either party or any United States institution could find itself their target. Allegations of collusion and the results of the election were secondary to the profound threat Russia posed—and poses—to our system.

  On March 20—two weeks after my TV appearance—Jim Comey and Mike Rogers testified before the House Intelligence Committee. During the hearing, Jim confirmed that the FBI was investigating contacts between Trump associates and Russia during the election. He also said there was “no information” to support the president’s claim that Trump Tower had been wiretapped. His testimony generated a lot of discomfiture in the White House, and six weeks later, on the eve of the next hearing at which Jim was scheduled to make an appearance, the president tried to preempt it with a series of tweets reading: “FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many bad deeds! The phony Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?”

  In the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing the next morning, Jim confirmed again that the FBI was investigating Russian interference and possible contacts with the Trump campaign, but went further, stating that Russia was continuing its interference in US politics. He referred to it as “the greatest threat of any nation on earth, given their intention and their ability.” Democrats pushed him for an explanation about the letter concerning newly discovered Clinton emails that he’d sent to Congress on October 28, to which he somewhat famously replied, “It makes me mildly nauseous to think that we might have had some impact on the election, but honestly, it wouldn’t change the decision.” He explained that, because of everything that had led up to the discovery of new emails, he couldn’t conceal the new information from Congress. “Everybody who disagrees with me has to come back to October 28 with me and stare at this and tell me what you would do.”

  I watched the hearing closely, for several reasons: because I admired Jim, considered him a friend, and wished him well, because I hadn’t received an intelligence briefing in three and a half months and was interested in what was new, and because I was scheduled to testify five days later before a Senate judiciary subcommittee and wanted a preview of what I was in for. That hearing was originally scheduled for me, Susan Rice, and Sally Yates—the former acting attorney general whom President Trump had fired in January when she’d courageously announced her determination that the president’s travel ban was unlawful and that the Justice Department would not defend it in court. The May 8 hearing would have been the first for each of us as private citizens, and we all had become controversial figures, although Susan and I had a head start on Sally.

  Although Susan had the least to do with the Russian interference investigation, I expected that she would take most of the heat at the hearing—she always had, dating back to Benghazi. Her appearance at this hearing was highly anticipated because she’d acknowledged that as national security adviser, she’d requested “unmasking” of US persons who’d participated or been mentioned in valid foreign intelligence intercepts. When their real names were revealed, she learned that some of those individuals had been associated with the Trump campaign. The media—particularly RT and right-wing online “news” sites—implied that our government secrecy signaled an impropriety related to unmasking, and they conflated the implied impropriety with conspiracy theories about Susan and the Obama administration. Although I no longer had access to the intelligence, I felt certain that the Russian social media troll farm was helping to slander Susan—a favorite target of theirs. I knew for a fact that Susan had done nothing wrong, and that requesting an unmasking was sometimes critical to understanding the context of an intercepted conversation. During my tenure as DNI, I’d also requested unmaskings, to learn whom a foreign intelligence target was talking to or talking about. Susan wouldn’t be able to discuss details of the classified intercepts during the hearing, but I knew she was looking forward to testifying to clear the air on the subject, and to clear her name.

  Then, just four days before our scheduled testimony, the subcommittee’s Democratic ranking member, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, notified Susan that the Republicans had not coordinated with the Democrats on the committee when they’d invited her to testify, and he did not consent to her appearance, asking her to withdraw. Susan felt she had no choice and withdrew her name as a witness. Immediately the Republicans seized on another false narrative, asserting she’d withdrawn because she had something to hide. President Trump tweeted, “Susan Rice, the former National Security Advisor to President Obama, is refusing to testify before a Senate Subcommittee next week on allegations of unmasking Trump transition officials. Not good!” I was displeased with how Susan was being treated and felt I’d lost my only close ally at the witness table. I didn’t know Sally as well. She had a reputation for being tough, but I worried the hearing was going to be ugly.

  With my opening statement, I recapped the multifaceted Russian campaign and how we’d made our IC assessment. I reviewed the briefings we’d conducted and said that, four months later, “the conclusions and confidence levels reached at the time still stand.” I talked about how the idea of unmasking was being misrepresented and misundersto
od in the media, and I cited an ODNI transparency report that indicated that 1,934 unmaskings had occurred in 2016 from collections under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. I explained that officials had to follow precise procedures for unmasking, and that unmasked names remained classified and very sensitive. By contrast, leaking those names—or any other classified material—was illegal and endangered national security. Next, I talked about counterintelligence investigations by the FBI, noting how acutely sensitive they are, and added that “during my tenure as DNI, it was my practice to defer to the FBI director—both Director Mueller and then subsequently Director Comey—on whether, when, and to what extent they would inform me about such investigations.” I encouraged Congress to renew Section 702 before it expired at the end of 2017. Noting the sharp divisions and lingering anger in the country, I concluded by saying the Russians “must be congratulating themselves.”

  Over the next three hours, we covered familiar ground on the Russian interference and the IC assessment, the dossier, and the briefings, but we also heard Sally’s riveting account of briefing the Trump White House counsel on Mike Flynn’s actions that led to his firing as national security adviser. She said she’d met White House counsel Don McGahn on January 26, during the first week of the new administration, and warned him “that there were a number of press accounts of statements that had been made by the vice president and other high-ranking White House officials about General Flynn’s conduct that we knew to be untrue.” The Justice Department knew—and “the Russians knew—that General Flynn had misled the Vice President,” and that created, “a situation where the national security advisor could be blackmailed by the Russians.” She said that the FBI had interviewed Flynn on January 24, the Justice Department “got a readout from the FBI on the 25th,” and she’d gone to McGahn on the twenty-sixth so that the White House could take appropriate action, noting, “You don’t want your national security advisor compromised by the Russians.” McGahn considered overnight and asked her to return for further discussion on Friday the twenty-seventh. She worked with the FBI over the weekend to document everything that had taken place and called McGahn on Monday, January 30, to inform him that the material “was available if he wanted to see it.” In the hearing, Senator Whitehouse asked her if anyone from the White House ever reviewed what they’d prepared. “I don’t know what happened after that,” Sally responded, “because that was my last day.” President Trump fired her that afternoon.

  At one point as she recounted this story, Senator Graham stopped her, asking, “Okay and I don’t mean to interrupt you, but this is important to me. How did the conversation between the Russian ambassador and Mr. Flynn make it to the Washington Post?” I answered for us, “That’s a great question. All of us would like to know that.”

  For eighteen days after Sally Yates’s conversation with Don McGahn, Mike Flynn stayed on as national security adviser, though both he and the White House knew that he’d been compromised by the Russians and that the FBI was investigating the compromise. President Trump finally—and reluctantly—fired Flynn on February 13. Jim Comey would later testify that the president met with him alone on February 14, telling him, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Jim did not agree to drop the investigation. In December, after Flynn had pleaded guilty to misleading the FBI, President Trump tweeted, “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!”

  As I listened to Sally testify, I thought about what a shame it was that the Justice Department had lost someone so willing and capable of speaking truth to power. That impression was only strengthened as members of the committee grilled her on her decision not to defend the president’s travel ban. Senator John Cornyn told her he found it enormously disappointing “that you would countermand the executive order of the president of the United States because you happen to disagree with it as a policy matter.” “I appreciate that, senator,” Sally shot back, “and let me make one thing clear. It is not purely as a policy matter. In fact, I’ll remember my confirmation hearing, in an exchange that I had with you and others of your colleagues where you specifically asked me in that hearing that if the president asked me to do something that was unlawful or unconstitutional—and one of your colleagues said, or even just that would reflect poorly on the Department of Justice—would I say no? And I looked at this, I made a determination that I believed that it was unlawful. I also thought that it was inconsistent with principles of the Department of Justice and I said no. And that’s what I promised you I would do and that’s what I did.” While I didn’t know Sally well at the start of the hearing, I admired and respected the strength of character, convictions, and impeccable integrity she demonstrated, and I felt as if we bonded under fire as the hearing went on.

  All of those conversations were interesting, but to me, there was one overriding reason we’d been called to testify. Midway through the hearing, I said, “I understand how critical leaks are and unmasking and all these ancillary issues. But to me, the transcendent issue here is the Russian interference in our election process, and what that means to the erosion of the fundamental fabric of our democracy, and that to me is a huge deal. And they’re going to continue to do it. And why not? It proved successful.” Then, near the end of the hearing—employing not very subtle sarcasm to introduce what I really wanted to say—I expressed why I was willing to testify publicly as a private citizen about what had happened: “Well, as much as I love congressional hearings, I think there is a useful purpose served, because I think the most important thing that needs to be done here, is to educate the electorate as to what the Russians’ objective is, and the tactics and techniques, and procedures that they’ve employed and will continue to employ.”

  After the hearing, President Trump sat down with reporters from Time magazine to watch clips and critique Sally and me. He was quoted by Time as saying, “Watch them start to choke like dogs,” and then, referring specifically to me, “Ah, he’s choking. Ah, look.” When a friend forwarded the story and I read Trump’s comments, it occurred to me that if President Obama had said that I had “choked” at a congressional hearing, I’d have been devastated. President Trump’s remarks just didn’t bother me.

  The thought I expressed at the end of the hearing—that we had to talk about what the Russians had done to us—was what led me to appear on Meet the Press in March and even—perhaps against my better judgment—to start writing a book around the same time. However, it took one more event to convince me that an occasional public appearance wasn’t going to cut it, and that event happened the very next day after the hearing.

  On Tuesday, May 9, my friend Jim Comey was talking to FBI employees in the Los Angeles field office when a nearby TV screen posted “breaking news”—he’d been fired as FBI director. No one had informed him. The same day, the White House put out a statement that the firing was on the recommendation of Sessions and Rosenstein, ostensibly because Jim had overreached with the investigation of Clinton’s emails. Shortly after the announcement, according to a report in the New York Times, President Trump bragged to Russian officials in the Oval Office, “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

  On Wednesday, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders changed the story, saying the president had lost confidence in Comey because of his poor leadership at the FBI, “and frankly he’d been considering letting Director Comey go since the day he was elected.” On Thursday, the president changed the story yet again, stating in an interview, “He’s a showboat, he’s a grandstander, the FBI has been in turmoil,” and that the workforce had lost faith in Jim as a leader. Trump further said that he was going to fire Comey regardless of Sessions’s and Rosenstein’s recommendati
ons. He went on: “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.’” Then, on Friday, Trump tweeted, “When James Clapper himself, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end?” This was after tweeting on Tuesday, “Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows—there is ‘no evidence’ of collusion w/ Russia and Trump.”

  For me, this was the final straw. Jim Comey was a distinguished public servant, and his firing and the way it was handled were truly reprehensible. I think people could reasonably disagree with some of his decisions, but he’d always made them with the best interests of the nation in mind, and to say that FBI had lost faith in his leadership was a flat lie. I was angry at both the way President Trump and his White House had treated my friend and colleague and at the thought that our nation had lost yet another leader with the courage to speak truth to power. And then the president asserted that I had exonerated him of collusion when, in fact, I’d made it very clear that the Intelligence Community simply could not corroborate allegations of collusion by the time we’d completed our report in January.

  On Friday, the same day the president posted that second tweet naming me, I went on MSNBC to refute the words that he had attributed to me. “My practice during the six and a half years that I was at the DNI,” I told Andrea Mitchell, “was always to defer to the director of the FBI—be it Director Bob Mueller or Director James Comey—on whether, when, and what to tell me about a counterintelligence investigation. So it is not surprising or abnormal that I would not have known about the investigation, or even more importantly, the content of that investigation. So, I don’t know if there was collusion or not, I don’t know if there is evidence of collusion or not, nor should I have in this particular context.” Andrea started to ask a question, but I wasn’t finished. “And if I may make one more point, what we were focused on and certainly what I was focused on in the madcap environment of the end of my time as DNI was the Intelligence Community assessment that we put together on Russian interference in our election, which by the way is the issue we really ought to be focusing on as a nation.” On the issue of collusion, I told her, “There was no evidence that rose to that level at that time that found its way into the Intelligence Community assessment, which we had pretty high confidence in. That’s not to say there wasn’t evidence, but not that met that threshold.”