McGahn asked Yates if the White House could potentially disrupt an ongoing investigation if they chose to fire Flynn. Yates said the Department of Justice was fine with the White House taking whatever action it felt necessary.
“You know it wouldn’t really be fair of us to tell you this and then expect you to sit on your hands,” Yates said.
That day, Eisenberg briefed McGahn on his initial legal analysis. He told McGahn that Flynn might have criminal exposure for making false statements to federal officials.
* * *
—
Around the same time that Yates went back to the White House, Trump called Comey at his office. McGahn had warned Trump against having direct contact with the FBI director, but Trump ignored him.
The FBI director was at his desk eating lunch when the call came in. In his three years working for Obama, he had never spoken to him on the phone, let alone received a call from the president out of the blue.
But here was Trump on the line.
The president asked Comey if he wanted to come over for dinner that night.
To Comey, the overture sounded ominous.
“The head of the FBI could not be put into the position of meeting and chatting privately with the president of the United States—especially after an election like 2016,” Comey would later say. “The very notion would compromise the bureau’s hard-won integrity and independence. My fear was that Trump expected exactly that.”
In an instant, Comey tried to rationalize the invitation, ascribe a benign motive to the president’s invitation. Certainly, Trump had to recognize the problem with having a private meeting one-on-one with Comey. It must be a group dinner, he thought.
The FBI director could have said no. But he reasoned that it was the seventh day of the administration. Saying no might create unnecessary tension.
“Of course, sir,” Comey said, accepting the invitation.
Comey hung up the phone with Trump and called Patrice. They had a date scheduled that night—Thai food. That needed to be put off, he said. “Sorry, Tricey,” he said. “I’ll make it up to you.”
That afternoon, Trump signed a ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries at a ceremony at the Pentagon. It would take only a day for a federal judge to rule parts of it unconstitutional.
At 6:20 p.m., Comey’s two-car motorcade of black sports utility vehicles arrived at the White House. He was brought up to the Green Room on the first floor—an austere room with green silk walls used for small events and meetings. Thomas Jefferson ate dinner in the room. Morticians embalmed Lincoln’s eleven-year-old son in it. Eleanor Roosevelt greeted the pilot Amelia Earhart there after she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.
Comey entered to see the table was set for only two people.
Oh, shit, he thought.
Trump arrived on time at 6:30 p.m. They sat down and dinner began.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the president dominated the conversation. To Comey, it was “conversation as jigsaw puzzle,” where Trump would never stick with one topic or engage in lengthy exchanges, instead flipping around between a multitude of unrelated subjects and returning to earlier ones for no apparent reason. As they were served courses of salad, shrimp scampi, chicken Parmesan, and vanilla ice cream, Trump gave Comey a tour of his mind, expounding on his appreciation of the White House’s luxuries, his media savvy, his son’s height, his understanding of the Clinton email investigation, and even the sexual assault allegations against him. He never really asked Comey a question or gave him much room to speak. He just didn’t seem interested.
What Trump was interested in was whether Comey wanted to keep his job. Several times he asked Comey what he wanted to do. It was a strange line of questions to ask a man with a ten-year appointment—so designed to be beyond the reach of politics. Trump’s intimation surprised Comey, because he already had the job and it was widely accepted that he would be there for the foreseeable future. By the third time he asked the question, it was becoming clear to Comey that Trump was trying, not so subtly, to signal that his job might be in jeopardy.
“I need loyalty,” Trump told him.
Comey ignored the comment.
He had thought during the transition that Trump might simply need to be taught how the government worked. Now, as he sat alone with the president in the Green Room, Comey started to realize that Trump didn’t need to be taught, nor did he have any interest in learning how to do things the right way. Trump knew exactly what he was doing; he just wanted to do things his own way and now had the power to do that.
During Comey’s time in government, he had been struck by the reality that the conduct of the institutions—which can seem from the outside to be massive and monolithic—was actually entirely dependent on the conduct and character of individuals. There was a president, his top few aides, and the leaders of Congress. If they went along with something, good or bad, that was it; their acts would be the acts of the United States. The direction of the country really turned much more on what those few leaders were like as people than he had ever imagined.
After becoming FBI director, Comey told his predecessor, Robert Mueller, that he was surprised by how much power and autonomy came with leading the agency. The bureau’s agents, analysts, and professional staff revered the role of the director and would go along with what Comey said, and the Department of Justice had little ability to see what Comey was doing or manage it.
“Now you see why the character of the person in that job matters so much,” Mueller had told him.
Seven months earlier, Comey had held an unusual press conference to put distance between the FBI and politics and then in October reopened the investigation in a desperate bid to protect the bureau’s credibility. He had been blamed for electing the man who now sat across from him, and had tried to convince himself that with adult supervision even this White House might be able to govern in a way that was akin to other presidencies. But here, now, the president of the United States was leaning on him for a commitment of loyalty—not to the institution of the presidency, he feared, but to Trump himself. His biggest concerns about who Trump was and how he would behave as president were coming true. And, to his astonishment, he now had real doubts about whether the president was acting in the country’s best interest. Was Trump just out for himself? His cronies? The Russians?
Trump wouldn’t let it go. He brought up loyalty again. Comey still could not come up with a good way of responding, but felt the need to say something.
“You will always get honesty from me,” Comey said.
“That’s what I want, honest loyalty,” Trump responded, studying Comey’s face to see if he agreed with his framing.
“You will get that from me,” Comey said, looking to end the conversation.
Comey got home that night with the same quiet demeanor that Patrice had noticed following the initial Trump Tower meeting.
“He asked for my loyalty,” Comey said.
“What is that?” Patrice responded.
The two found a giggle in something Trump had said at the end of the meal. The president said that the entire Comey family should come over to the White House for dinner or a tour. Comey wouldn’t play basketball with Barack Obama for fear of what it might look like. It wasn’t that hard to understand: The FBI director should not be the president’s buddy. In response to Trump’s overture, Comey had said nothing.
The next day, Comey sat down to write up a memo about his dinner with Trump. He took four pages to lay out all of the details he could remember, ensuring there would be a contemporaneous account of Trump’s request for loyalty.
“The conversation, which was pleasant at all times, was chaotic, with topics touched, left, then returned to later, making it very difficult to recount in linear fashion,” Comey wrote. “Normally I can recall the pieces of a conversation and the order of
discussion with high confidence. Here, given the nature of it, there is a distinct possibility that, while I have the substance right, the order was slightly different.”
A week had passed since Trump became president. The FBI was investigating the president’s campaign. The national security adviser had lied to the FBI. The president had asked the FBI director for his loyalty. The FBI director was keeping memos on every major interaction he had with a president whom he did not trust. And Comey felt like he was a man alone, with no one else in the government there to help.
★ ★ ★
FEBRUARY 8, 2017
NINETY-EIGHT DAYS UNTIL THE APPOINTMENT OF SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT S. MUELLER III
RICHARD BLUMENTHAL’S SENATE OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D.C.—Despite the turbulence created by Trump, the travel ban, and Flynn, the Gorsuch nomination remained on track. McGahn made it known to everyone in the White House that this project was his baby and nothing would get in the way of moving along the nomination. All McGahn and everyone else had to do was follow the memo he had written that laid out the schedule and plan they needed to follow. Trump had announced the nomination in the East Room in the second week of the administration. Now it fell to McGahn to usher Gorsuch through his confirmation process.
Eight days after the nomination, Gorsuch met with Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut—a top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. The meeting seemed to go fine. Afterward, Blumenthal went to reporters to share some of the notable remarks the Supreme Court nominee had made. Days earlier, a federal judge in Washington State had temporarily blocked the travel ban nationwide, and Trump broke a long-standing norm and responded by tweeting that the opinion of the “so-called judge” was “ridiculous and will be overturned.” Blumenthal said that Gorsuch had described Trump’s attack on the federal judge as “disheartening” and “demoralizing.”
The comments pitted Trump and his nominee against each other. In a move meant to win the news cycle, Trump then publicly called Blumenthal a liar, accusing him of fabricating the account of the meeting. But Trump’s attack was discredited after a White House aide working on Gorsuch’s nomination confirmed the remarks. Privately, Trump fumed. To him, the world was a series of quid pro quo arrangements, and the relationship at hand demanded absolute loyalty from his nominee. How could Gorsuch—a man he had less than two weeks before nominated to a lifetime appointment on the nation’s highest court—criticize him like that?
* * *
—
Around the time Gorsuch sat down with Blumenthal, Comey arrived at the White House for his first face-to-face meeting with the new White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus. He was confronting the reality that he did not trust the president. But Comey was not ready to let Trump destroy the FBI’s independence. If Trump was uncontrollable, the next best option was to hopefully train those around the president.
When Comey entered the White House, he headed to the reception area inside the front door to the West Wing, where a Marine stands when the president is in the Oval Office working. That day, the Marine was there.
Comey sat quietly in a chair on the side of the room near a receptionist. He wanted to avoid seeing Trump, figuring nothing good could come of that. As he waited for Priebus, someone else he wanted to avoid walked out of the vice president’s office.
Holy shit, it’s Flynn, Comey thought to himself.
Flynn walked directly toward him.
Comey stood up, and they shook hands. Then it got worse: Flynn sat down next to him.
What if Flynn asks about the investigation? Comey thought to himself. He tried to make small talk.
All Flynn wanted to talk about was how much sleep he was getting, when he was waking up, and how, in his new job, he was finding it hard to carve out time to work out. This was easy: Comey loved talking sleep and work-life balance. He rattled off a list of ways that he learned when he was deputy attorney general to remain rested and in shape despite the stress of the job.
Blessedly, the small talk was cut short, because Comey was summoned into Priebus’s office.
Having avoided a confrontation with Flynn, Comey now had to deal with a chief of staff who seemed to have little handle on his job. Priebus asked him about the Steele dossier. Comey said that much of it was consistent with other intelligence the government had and that it was important for Trump to know what was out there about him.
“Is this a private conversation?” Priebus asked Comey.
Comey said it was.
“Do you have a FISA order on Mike Flynn?” Priebus asked, using the acronym for a government wiretap.
Comey saw this as a time for a teachable moment, and paused. He said he would answer the question: No, there was not a wiretap on Flynn. But he also laid out the protocols for contacts between the White House and the FBI, telling Priebus that going forward, this was the type of question that the Justice Department should only be answering in direct communication with the White House counsel’s office. Comey talking about the contact policy was rich. Just two weeks earlier he had flagrantly disregarded that very policy and sent his FBI agents into the White House to interview Flynn.
Priebus then brought up the dinner Comey and Trump had just had, adding that Trump had told him Comey was interested in staying on. Comey repeated what he told Trump, adding that there would be no need for an announcement. Priebus seemed confused about how the FBI director’s tenure functioned. Comey explained that although the president could fire him at any time, he had been appointed to a ten-year term.
After twenty minutes or so, Priebus stood to usher Comey out. A few more steps and the FBI director would avoid Trump and make a clean getaway. And in any case, presidents are normally so scheduled that impromptu meetings are almost unheard of. But as Priebus and Comey passed the open door of the Oval Office, Priebus motioned for Comey to say hello to the president, who was meeting with Sean Spicer. After quick introductions, Comey took a seat across from Trump, and the two began to talk about several different topics Trump was unhappy about, including Hillary Clinton, leaks, and the Steele dossier. Trump brought up his recent interview with the Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. He was upset that O’Reilly had questioned Trump’s respect for Putin and described the Russian president as a “killer,” to which Trump responded by saying, “There are a lot of killers; we’ve got a lot of killers.” Comey was learning that Trump had basically two modes of communication: He was expert in attacking, and he was constantly seeking affirmation. Clearly, he was looking for Comey to affirm his realpolitik, everybody-is-ruthless theory of world leaders, but no such affirmation would be forthcoming. Comey told Trump he disagreed that there was a comparison between the United States and Russia when it comes to political killings. That brought the conversation to an abrupt end, and Comey left.
For Comey, the experience only deepened the mystery of Trump’s motivations and actions regarding Putin. American intelligence had come to the shattering consensus that the Russian president had directed a comprehensive campaign of cyberattacks on the American elections, and not only did Trump seem blithely unconcerned about that, but he was for some reason ardently defending Putin. Not only publicly, but privately as well. “I thought there was something weird, there were a number of possibilities, but something weird that led him to speak about Russia and Putin in the way he did, including in private,” Comey would later say. “That ate at me.”
* * *
—
That evening, as Comey wrote the third in what was quickly becoming a series of memos to document his short meeting with Trump, Priebus called McGahn at home. The chief of staff wanted to warn McGahn about something Trump was saying.
“He wants to pull the Gorsuch nomination,” Priebus told McGahn.
McGahn was flabbergasted.
Why was Trump behaving this way? The presidency was not painting by numbers, but McGahn had a plan, and all Trump had to do
was follow it. So what if Gorsuch said something that walked up to the line of being mildly critical? Gorsuch was exactly the person they needed on the Supreme Court. And, as a judge, he was allowed to do and say whatever he wanted. Pulling the nomination would be devastating to those voters who were able to look past Trump’s personal behavior and outlandish style because they believed he shared their values. It was the Supreme Court that had gotten Trump elected. Without Scalia’s open seat, Trump might not have won. And now he was going to turn his back on those people? And look hopelessly mercurial and petty in the process?
Trump was so thin-skinned that McGahn believed that not only might he pull the nomination but, for being Gorsuch’s champion, McGahn himself might get fired, too. From Priebus’s call, the only thing that was clear was that no one knew what would happen with the nomination. Not surprisingly with Trump, there were several potential wild cards. The president had started talking about Rudolph Giuliani as an option. During the transition, the investment banker and Trump supporter Anthony Scaramucci had talked to the Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano about a spot on the Supreme Court.
In the White House the following day, McGahn made it known across the staff that he opposed any effort to withdraw Gorsuch’s nomination or otherwise undermine his confirmation. However, he avoided making a direct appeal to Trump, instead discussing his frustration with others in the West Wing.
Later that day, as a sign of support—a signal that not everyone in the White House was abandoning him—McGahn gave Gorsuch a call. He told the nominee what Trump had been saying. Gorsuch didn’t blink, wouldn’t be backing down from his statement to Senator Blumenthal, and insisted that he would defend the role of the judiciary over and over, regardless of whether it created a problem with Trump. McGahn told Gorsuch he was glad to hear that. If it came down to it, he replied, he would quit before going along with a withdrawal of the nomination.
Shortly after the call, McGahn had one of his deputies draft a one-sentence resignation letter for him. After just over two weeks on the job—among the most sought-after legal positions in the entire government—McGahn was ready to leave, if it came to that. Nominating judges was why he had taken the job. He was told this was going to be his turf, entirely. If Gorsuch was out, so was he.
Donald Trump V. the United States : Inside the Struggle to Stop a President (9781984854674) Page 17