Fever Swamp: A Journey Through the Strange Neverland of the 2016 Presidential Race

by Richard North Patterson

  As we wait, the political crosscurrents keep swirling. Bereft of new information, Trump nonetheless has a new theme that, for the moment, keeps him focused on making Clinton’s trustworthiness the issue. Reprising Clinton’s use of a private server while she was Secretary of State, he asserts repeatedly that she is guilty of criminal conduct—clearly hoping to rally Republicans and estrange wavering voters from Clinton. Trump’s campaign is not shy about the strategy:315 mobilize his base and suppress turnout among likely Clinton voters in every way they can, whether through negative information, voter ID laws, or intimidation at the polls. It’s the only way that Trump can win.

  Even before October 28, the polls were tightening, most likely because of Republicans coming home. In states that Trump must carry, like Ohio and Florida, he may have regained the edge. But the Clinton campaign is driving early voting, in which she appears to be doing well, and the electoral map tilts very much in her favor. The question is whether, when the polls close for good, Clinton’s superior ground operation will have turned out the voters she needs.

  The last seven days will no doubt be eventful—Hillary Clinton’s final test. WikiLeaks will keep releasing hacked emails. The Clinton campaign will try to retake the narrative. The Obamas will give Clinton their all. More gamy revelations about Trump may emerge. His rhetoric will grow ever more mendacious and ugly. The battle for the Senate will tighten. Polls will oscillate. Each campaign will make tough judgments about which states deserve more resources.

  Through all this will run the Comey effect. More questions will emerge about his refusal to sign off on a statement saying that the Russian government was meddling in the presidential election—on the ironic grounds that the statement would come too close to the election.316 And the FBI’s mysterious discoveries among Weiner’s emails will hang over the campaign unless, and until, their contents become public.

  The irony here, logic suggests, is that the emails are of little significance—that Comey placed his thumb on the scales without reason. Perhaps voters will perceive that. More likely, Comey’s potentially historic misjudgment will not be enough to upend the fundamentals of the race. By now too many voters have made up their mind.

  Trump, after all, remains Trump. And so does Clinton. Whatever the obstacles, she will continue to do what she always does: work hard, work smart, and stay focused to the end. Those are the qualities of a president and, as her campaign has shown, only Clinton has them.

  PART V

  The Last Very Scary Days, an Election Filled with Dread, and an Extremely Sober National Reckoning

  In the aftermath of James Comey’s October 28 letter it became clear that he had transformed the final days of the campaign.

  The subject of Clinton’s emails again commanded the news; polls narrowed, both nationally and in key states; the candidates’ messages, advertising, and travel schedules changed in reaction; and the expectation that Clinton was cruising to an electoral college mandate evanesced. By reanimating the subject of Clinton’s biggest weakness, Comey’s letter had sown fresh doubt among independents and other persuadable voters. And it had transformed Trump from a floundering, failing candidate to a full-throated demagogue whose line of attack dominated the campaign’s final days.

  With the renewed focus of a man reborn, Trump kept repeating the same grotesque lie: that Comey’s letter made it certain Clinton would be indicted, convicted, and imprisoned for the crimes revealed in Abedin’s emails. Never mind that no one knew what was in them—in Trump’s hands, Comey’s Delphic letter was a blank slate for slander, the perfect means for turning the page past Trump the misogynist groper. “Her election,” he blared from screens across America, “would mire our government and our country in a constitutional crisis that we cannot afford.”

  And it was working. Polls showed that restive Republicans were returning to the fold; that the enthusiasm gap between Trump and Clinton voters had widened; that a majority of undecided voters considered Comey’s letter to be a factor in determining their vote. There was a significant increase in early voting among whites more likely to vote for Trump. And, at long last, Trump’s handlers had managed to separate their man from his suicidal Twitter account, reportedly by changing his password without his knowledge.

  The dynamic had shifted. In an effort to refocus attention on Trump, Clinton went back on the attack, muting the positive message she had intended to stress in the campaign’s final week. Barack Obama felt compelled to break his silence by sharply criticizing Comey’s decision to go public ahead of the facts, later adding that law enforcement “should not be used as a weapon.”

  There was much to criticize, and not just Comey’s decision to disregard specific admonitions from the Justice Department that he was disregarding department guidelines. Almost immediately, more questions surfaced regarding Comey’s judgment in so hastily sending a letter that would so obviously impact the campaign.

  The New York Times reported that, in the summer of 2016, the FBI had decided not to take steps in two politically charged investigations that, in the view of Justice Department officials, would make them public too close to the election. One involved Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and his undisclosed business dealings in the Ukraine. The second concerned the implications, if any, for State Department policy stemming from contributions by foreign entities to the Clinton Foundation.

  In both cases, the Justice Department and the FBI—presumably at Comey’s direction—decided to wait until after the election. Combined with Comey’s refusal to associate the FBI with a statement regarding Russian meddling in the election, this made his October 28 letter all the more astonishing.

  For by sending it, Comey had authored the most consequential October surprise in the history of presidential politics.

  Why, one wondered?

  Some defenders argued that he had no choice—that having reported to Congress in the summer about the Clinton email matter, he was compelled to update them when these other emails appeared. But about what, exactly? At the time he sent the letter, he had no idea what was in the Abedin emails—the FBI had not yet obtained a search warrant to review them. Given that the FBI had refrained from taking any steps that would disclose other politically sensitive inquiries, it was exceedingly strange that Comey would make such a disclosure so close to the election.

  Other explanations for his startling intrusion involved self-interest: that he had placed his reputation for personal probity above Justice Department guidelines; that he was a sophisticated political player who deployed that reputation to advance his own interests; that he was a partisan Republican who disliked Hillary Clinton. Or all of that.

  But a proliferation of reporting in the campaign’s final days suggested deeper causes. The starting point was that conservative FBI agents hostile to Clinton, concentrated in the New York office, were the source of leaks about the FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation—which they were eager to pursue immediately regardless of, or perhaps because of, its potential impact on the election. The same group, the reportage had it, would have leaked the discovery of the Abedin emails had Comey not come forward.

  In short, the FBI itself had begun wallowing in the fever swamp. The suspicion that rogue FBI agents were politicizing the Bureau for Trump’s benefit was effectively confirmed by his principal surrogate, Rudy Giuliani. Hours after Comey sent his letter, Giuliani attributed Comey’s action in a radio interview to “the pressure of a group of FBI agents who don’t look at it politically.”

  As quoted by Wayne Barrett in The Daily Beast, Giuliani claimed inside knowledge: “The other rumor that I get is that there’s a kind of revolution going on inside the FBI about the original conclusion [not to charge Clinton criminally] being completely unjustified and almost a slap in the face to the FBI’s integrity.” Added Giuliani, “I know that from former agents. I know that even from a few active agents.”

  Another comment from Giuliani suggested that the Trump campaign was expecting Comey
’s letter—and, perhaps, had spurred the rebellion that pushed Comey to act. Two days before Comey sent the letter, Giuliani volunteered on Fox that “I think [Trump’s] got a surprise or two that you’re going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises.” Asked for details, Giuliani responded, “We’ve got a couple things up our sleeve that should turn this thing around.”

  It was easy to start connecting dots. As Barrett reported, Giuliani has strong connections to the FBI’s New York office. These began when he was a federal prosecutor, and deepened when his law firm represented an association that includes 13,000 former and current agents. One is James Kallstrom, the former head of the New York office, with whom Giuliani is particularly close.

  Both Giuliani and Kallstrom were vociferous critics of Comey’s decision in July not to recommend criminal charges against Clinton in the email matter. Through the media, Giuliani claimed that numerous past and present agents were outraged—including Kallstrom, a strident public critic of the Clintons. Joining the chorus on Fox News, Kallstrom claimed that agents he knew were “basically disgusted” by Comey’s performance. One sensed a pincer movement ratcheting up the pressure on Comey—one pincer in the media, the other within the agency—connected to Trump’s most ferocious public backer.

  But the real stunner came three days before the election. Appearing again on Fox, a cackling Giuliani (yes, he seemed increasingly mad) triumphantly acknowledged that he had anticipated Comey’s letter three to four weeks before he sent it to Congress—based, he said, on conversations with former agents.

  This appeared to be a clear admission that, directly or indirectly, Giuliani had been communicating with agents within the FBI who sought to help the Trump campaign in this extraordinary way. No surprise, then, that Congressman Elijah Cummings cited Giuliani’s statements in demanding an investigation into apparent misconduct. Nor was it a surprise that Giuliani then backtracked, carefully denying specific advance knowledge of Comey’s letter.

  One could not know what role all these pressures played in Comey’s decision to write the letter. But their existence helped explain his anomalous behavior—and there was no doubt that Comey had given Trump exactly what he needed in the campaign’s final days.

  Publicly, the Clinton campaign tried to suggest that business was as usual. But the change in the electoral map was striking. By November 3 a dire Clinton fund-raising letter depicted a Trump path to victory that, while unlikely, was no longer implausible. First, Trump had to take the states that Romney won in 2012, including North Carolina—a total of 206 electoral votes out of 270 needed. Next, Trump had to win three states where polls showed him winning or statistically tied—Ohio, Iowa, and Florida—bringing him to 259.

  The letter then suggested several paths for Trump to pick up the last eleven electoral votes. One—winning Pennsylvania—at this point seemed unlikely. Another involved taking Colorado and Nevada, two states with substantial Latino populations in which, despite this, polls showed tightening races post-Comey. The third involved winning Colorado and adding New Hampshire—a state where, according to the latest polling, Trump had drawn even.

  Under this calculus, everything would have to break just right for Trump—and his campaign clearly knew that. So they dedicated both the candidate and resources to blue states where, heretofore, no one had had imagined them winning—New Mexico, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Unlikely, and the polls said as much. But the addition of any one of them to Clinton’s nightmare scenario could put Trump over the top.

  Abruptly Clinton, too, was appearing and spending in Michigan and Wisconsin. It was difficult to tell whether the campaign was truly worried, or shoring up their firewall to cut Trump off.

  A lot depended on turnout. In the age of cell phones and disappearing landlines, polling is ever more imprecise; a good get-out-the-vote operation is worth an extra point or two. Only Clinton had one, and the sophisticated data to go with it—including what issues move which voters, and what different subgroups exist within a wider demographic. Only Clinton had the capacity to turn out early voters. All that was money in the electoral bank.

  Still, the Comey effect was a tricky thing to read. To find out what was happening beneath the surface, I reached out to people who knew—one at the heart of Clinton’s campaign apparatus; one with close connections to her campaign; and one who has spent four decades in presidential politics as a preeminent Republican operative. Nothing you tell me will see print until after the election, I assured them, and I will never use your name. With this proviso they described what those on the inside were seeing.

  The long and short of things was that Comey’s letter had transformed the inner workings of both campaigns.

  The tightening of the race, all felt, was too dramatic to attribute to the partisan habits of a polarized electorate or, though it was helpful to Trump, to bad news about Obamacare. Post-Comey, the revelations about Trump’s behavior toward women—which, in their estimate, had given Clinton an artificial lead—had been overtaken by an overwhelming, and overwhelmingly negative, focus on Clinton.

  This was denying her votes she might have had—particularly from independents and Republicans who had seen too much of Trump. As recycled hourly by the media, the mere existence of the letter became a force multiplier, reminding such voters of all they disliked about Clinton. Some would stay home; others, in the end, would gravitate to Trump.

  Within the Clinton campaign, her estimated chances of winning had dropped by roughly 10 percent. That number, like their confidence in grinding it out, still remained high—around 84 percent. But Comey had thrown their message into reverse.

  After all the bitterness, Clinton had planned to end the campaign on a positive theme, reaching out to voters with a promise of hope and inclusion. Prior to the letter, the campaign’s advertising mix had shifted to 80 percent positive, a bid to assemble a convincing electoral mandate by reaching any voter who remained persuadable. Now the mix was almost 100 percent negative, attacks on Trump focused on turning out base voters in key states.

  On the stump, Clinton’s message had changed accordingly—she was back to spending much of her time running against Trump. Something precious had been lost, and the campaign knew it. They were intensifying polarization, turning off some voters in order to rally those they needed most. The act of winning would make it harder to govern.

  But her campaign was propelled by demographic logic—the imperative of turning out the Democratic base. Clinton was still lagging among key components of the Obama coalition, black people and young people. This would be offset, the campaign believed, by outperforming Obama among the growing Latino vote that Trump had repelled beyond redemption—helping Clinton in the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, and Nevada, as well as in traditionally Republican Arizona.

  And Clinton was continuing to lead Trump among white college-educated women. Those advantages, they judged, would help deliver the key states they needed—a sense confirmed over the final weekend before the election by a surge in early voting among Latinos.

  But both campaigns were looking at the same map, and it kept changing before their eyes. A 350-electoral-vote victory for Clinton, a real possibility pre-Comey, now seemed remote. A shift in voter enthusiasm that favored Trump made it harder for Clinton to flip states like Arizona and Georgia, or to take closely contested battleground states. The map had become a chessboard—the key for Clinton was cutting off every path Trump might have to victory.

  Before the Comey letter the Clinton campaign believed that they would win every battleground state that Obama had won in 2012, squeezing out the closest of them, Ohio and Iowa. Now Trump appeared to be leading in both, closing in on New Hampshire and Florida, and moving up in North Carolina.

  He needed all five—a daunting task, the Clinton campaign thought—plus Nevada and Colorado. But if the change of momentum delivered all seven states to Trump, he would become our next president.

  Thi
s scenario looked a lot like the electoral dystopia conjured by Clinton’s fundraising letter. But despite its alarums, her campaign remained confident that a large Latino turnout would secure Nevada and Colorado—which, it seemed clear, the Trump campaign suspected as well.317 If so, Trump’s presumptive path to victory was short one state—a blue state at that—to replace Colorado and Nevada.

  That was why Clinton and her ad money had suddenly popped up in Michigan and Wisconsin, followed in Michigan over the weekend by her husband and Barack Obama. Absent Pennsylvania—the Republicans’ quadrennial equivalent of Charlie Brown and the football—winning one of those two states, rich in blue-collar voters, was Trump’s last path to a winning majority of 270 electoral votes.

  A mere week earlier such a conversation would have been preposterous. This was one measure of the Comey effect.

  Bernie Sanders had beaten Clinton in the Michigan primary—in the wake of Comey, the Clinton campaign was no longer taking the state for granted. And my Republican source noted that, however blue Wisconsin had been in presidential elections, it was the one GOP target state where Trump’s abysmal organization did not matter. The ground game needed to win was already in place—Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus were both from Wisconsin, and its Republican governor, Scott Walker, had assembled the machinery to win two exceedingly nasty races.

  Skeptical, I questioned whether this translated in a high-turnout presidential election. Ordinarily, he acknowledged, Republicans coming home to the party were not enough for a winning coalition. But the post-Comey world was a crazy place to be—with momentum on their side, the Trump campaign thought they could win, and he put their chances at 50–50.