“But look at the headache it’s caused,” I responded.
In an instant of quiet space a moment later, I asked one of the questions I’d come in with at the top of my notebook: What did Trump understand to be the scope of what Mueller could look at in his investigation?
Trump said he didn’t know, because nobody from the investigation had contacted him about anything.
“Because I have done nothing wrong,” he said.
Unbidden, he began to rage about Sessions’s recusal and Rosenstein’s appointment of Mueller.
“Sessions never should have recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else.”
This statement from the president would be big news within hours, because it was clear that he thought it was the attorney general’s role to protect him from investigations, and in recusing himself from anything to do with the Russia matter, Sessions had, he felt, left him vulnerable. Personal loyalty to the president is not of course in the attorney general’s job description. Sessions could not have known when Trump nominated him to run the Justice Department that a statement he made during his confirmation hearing to Senator Al Franken of Minnesota about his contacts with the Russians would force him to recuse himself from involvement with the Russia investigation, and lead to him becoming a singular object of the president’s ire. But the velocity of this Trump monologue did not allow for nuance or the fact-checking of every single utterance, and it’s harder to interrupt the president of the United States—especially one who speaks like a steamroller—than I thought it would be.
In the case of a president like this president, interviews are of only limited utility. Interviews will give you insight. Journalism will get you the truth. As Orwell said, journalism is about writing something that someone doesn’t want you to write. Everything else is public relations.
“How do you take a job and then recuse yourself?” Trump continued. “If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, ‘Thanks, Jeff, but I can’t, you know, I’m not going to take you.’ It’s extremely unfair—and that’s a mild word—to the president. So he recuses himself. I then end up with a second man, who’s a deputy.”
Baker again attempted to steer him back to the question of whether Mueller would be passing a red line if he looked at his finances. But Trump wanted to talk about Rosenstein’s potential conflicts and said that he had a big hand in the Comey firing.
“Look, there are so many conflicts that everybody has,” he said.
Before our time came to an end, I again wanted to know if he thought Mueller would be crossing some sort of red line if he were to investigate Trump’s finances.
“Would it be a breach of what his actual charge is?” Maggie asked.
Trump said it “would be a violation,” but of what it was not clear, and he wasn’t able to say before immediately turning into a cul-de-sac about how he’d never done business in Russia and that his involvement with the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow had been minimal. It seemed as if he had logically connected a question about his finances with an answer about the extent to which he did or did not have business dealings in Russia.
“Would you fire Mueller if he went outside of certain parameters of what his charge is?” Maggie said, focusing her question.
“I can’t answer that question,” he said, “because I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
McGahn only found out that Trump was giving an interview or what he might have said when we published our story about it. He knew then that Trump’s fixation on punishing and humiliating Sessions had only intensified. At a greater level, the president was now in an open public war with his Justice Department, adding yet another ingredient to a smoldering pile of problems. Despite this and the heavily negative reaction to the interview, Trump was pleased with the coverage and the headlines it created. We got back word from the White House that the interview had been therapeutic for Trump, because he felt much better after publicly airing his grievances with Sessions.
* * *
—
With McGahn’s persistent refusals to follow his order to fire the special counsel, Trump was undeterred and continued searching for someone who would do as he said. Although he had the power to fire Mueller, Sessions, and everyone else in the Justice Department, he appeared afraid to do it himself. Hours before we interviewed Trump in the Oval Office, the president, without telling McGahn, had met there with someone he thought might be the person for the job: his first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski. In the middle of the campaign, Lewandowski himself had been fired by Trump, but like many others, Trump still took his calls and Lewandowski still said nice things about the president.
At the most basic level, government is supposed to be run by those inside the government. That precept ensures accountability. When the Article II branch—the executive—had been argued into existence by Madison and Hamilton in the Federalist Papers and then ratified in 1788, the idea was that presidents and those who worked directly for them would execute the executive functions under the Constitution, and legislative and judiciary branches would be able to “counteract” (Madison’s word) the president’s power should they need to.
But it’s harder to counteract the power of a freelancer. Lewandowski had never joined the administration, but he had monetized his ties to the president through consulting contracts and book deals and was holding out hope that Trump would someday make him the White House chief of staff. During the campaign, Lewandowski had also served as a literal enforcer for the president, going so far as to get himself charged with misdemeanor battery in Florida in 2016 for grabbing a reporter who tried to approach Trump and ask him a question. Florida prosecutors ultimately decided not to pursue the charges.
In the Oval Office, Trump was getting an update from Lewandowski about a project they had discussed several weeks earlier. The previous month, Trump had asked Lewandowski to confront Sessions and persuade him to unrecuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation. Specifically, the president wanted Lewandowski to tell Sessions to give a speech that lauded Trump and reestablished his control over the Mueller investigation. Trump had even dictated the exact language he wanted Sessions to use.
“I know that I recused myself from certain things having to do with specific areas,” Lewandowski had scribbled down as the president dictated.
“But our POTUS…is being treated very unfairly. He shouldn’t have a Special Prosecutor/Counsel b/c he hasn’t done anything wrong. I was on the campaign w/ him for nine months, there were no Russians involved with him. I know it for a fact b/c I was there. He didn’t do anything wrong except he ran the greatest campaign in American history.
“Now a group of people want to subvert the Constitution of the United States,” Lewandowski wrote down. “I am going to meet with the special prosecutor to explain this is very unfair and let the special prosecutor move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections so that nothing can happen in future elections.”
Since Trump first talked to Lewandowski, Sessions had still not given the speech, nor had he reasserted his control over the investigation. And the investigation had appeared only to intensify as the media reported that Mueller had staffed up with a team of experienced prosecutors—many of whom were Democrats—and the news had broken about the Trump Tower meeting during the campaign where the Russians had offered dirt on Clinton.
Now Trump wanted to know what Lewandowski had done with his demand.
What Lewandowski held back on telling Trump was that he had been concerned about discussing such a sensitive issue with Sessions. Lewandowski wanted to avoid talking to Sessions about it over the phone or in person at the Justice Department. He had scheduled a meeting with the attorney general at Lewandowski’s personal office, but Sessions, after initially agreeing to see him there
, had called it off.
Lewandowski told the president that he would follow through and would soon be communicating his message—and the speech—to the attorney general.
But by that night, after our interview was published in the Times, there would be no further need for Lewandowski to privately meet with Sessions. The president had loudly and clearly told the attorney general exactly what he thought of him.
★ ★ ★
JULY 22, 2017
ONE YEAR, EIGHT MONTHS, AND TWENTY-SEVEN DAYS UNTIL THE RELEASE OF THE MUELLER REPORT
ABOARD THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER GERALD R. FORD IN NORFOLK, VIRGINIA—McGahn watched as external factors continued to send Trump spiraling. On Friday night, The Washington Post reported that American intelligence intercepts showed that the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, had told his bosses in Russia that he had spoken with Sessions during the presidential race about campaign-related matters, more proof that Sessions hadn’t told the truth in his confirmation hearing and another affirmation of his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. The story once again tied Sessions to negative headlines about Russia and resurrected the recusal issue for Trump.
The following morning, Trump suggested that Clinton should be investigated, just like him.
“So many people are asking why isn’t the A.G. or Special Council looking at the many Hillary Clinton or Comey crimes. 33,000 e-mails deleted?” Trump tweeted at 7:44 that morning.
The tweet was part of Trump’s increasingly brazen effort to use the presidency to push an aura of criminality onto his former opponent. In an interview with the Times after his victory in November, Trump had said he was dropping his threats from the campaign to prosecute Clinton, saying that the best way to put a vicious campaign behind the country was to move on. But as he came under increased scrutiny in the White House, he began reversing course, saying that she, too, needed to be investigated.
As he flew on Marine One en route to Norfolk, Virginia, for the christening of a new aircraft carrier, the Gerald R. Ford, Trump decided it was time to oust Sessions, and he knew just the person to do it: Priebus. Trump told Priebus that Sessions needed to go. The president said it was Priebus’s job to get Sessions to quit and that he was expecting a fresh resignation letter on his desk by that evening.
From the deck of the aircraft carrier, unsure of what to do, Priebus called McGahn, who only a month earlier had faced his own similar showdown with the president. Once the situation was explained, McGahn quickly recognized just how big a mess Trump was about to make for himself. First, the White House counsel and the chief of staff considered resigning themselves, right then and there—abandoning ship before Trump sank it completely. But then McGahn had another idea: Burck had been able to help maneuver him out of such requests from Trump; perhaps he could help Priebus as well. McGahn called his lawyer.
“I need you to talk to Priebus,” McGahn told Burck.
Burck agreed, and McGahn called Priebus back to give him Burck’s number, which Priebus scribbled down on a piece of White House stationery.
Still on the Gerald R. Ford, Priebus called Burck. Around the time of their call, Trump was giving a speech on the deck of the ship, admiring the “beautiful” $13 billion vessel and calling on the sailors in the audience to support his increased military spending proposals.
“Here’s what’s going on,” Priebus told Burck. “He wants me to get Sessions’s resignation.”
Burck told his new client that he could not follow through on the president’s demand. He said that if Trump continued to insist on it, both Priebus and McGahn needed to resign to protect themselves from being accused of obstructing justice.
Back in Washington that afternoon, Trump badgered Priebus to the point where Priebus assumed he was about to get fired over his refusal to oust Sessions.
“Did you get it?” Trump said. “Are you working on it?”
Priebus intended to follow Burck’s instructions, but he was also afraid of the president. Digging himself in deeper, he told Trump that he would find a way to oust the attorney general. It was only later that day that Priebus hit on a short-term solution: He would tell the president that Sessions’s ouster would lead other top Justice Department officials to resign en masse. That bought Priebus a few days.
Once again, Trump had been stymied behind the scenes. But he continued with the same rhetoric. On July 25, he again publicly attacked Sessions while simultaneously advocating for having the Justice Department prosecute Clinton.
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!” Trump tweeted.
Message received. At the Justice Department, Sessions wrote a new resignation letter, and he would keep it in his pocket for the rest of his time as attorney general. Three days after the tweet, Trump fired Priebus.
For Burck, the incident involving Priebus showed him how dangerous and unusual a situation his clients found themselves in with the president and the challenge he had in helping to guide them. In the span of two months, Burck had gone from a complete outsider at the Trump White House to the voice on the other end of the phone for half a dozen senior White House officials scrambling to contain an unbound president and protect themselves at the same time. On long conference calls with other clients—like European companies in trouble with the Justice Department and Middle Eastern investors trying to do business in the United States—Burck’s mind would often shift back to the intractable situation his clients had with the president. Burck had had a window into Trump’s behavior for only a short period of time. He had never met Trump but could see through the profile emerging from his clients how the president was a mess, constantly creating legal problems for himself and for those around him while simultaneously testing the system in ways that had never before been contemplated. On top of it all, Burck believed there was a possibility the entire situation could spin out of control if Trump took a drastic measure—like firing Mueller or prosecuting a rival—and Trump was removed from office. Even though Burck thought Trump was awful and unfit to be president, the consequences of having him removed could potentially be worse. The entire fabric of the country, Burck thought, might unravel because 40 percent of Americans would see the removal as a coup, believe Trump had been overthrown, and resort to violence. The country might never recover from that, he thought. To head all of that off, his clients needed to be there to protect Trump from his worst impulses and protect the country from Trump.
“It’s going to lead to much bigger problems for everyone,” Burck later said. “He will get thrown out of office even before there’s a report, and you will have the deplorables and everyone at war with each other.”
The most important tenet of Burck’s strategy was keeping his clients out of legal trouble. Even though Burck believed the country’s future might hang in the balance, he knew that first and foremost it was his job to ensure that his clients did not break the law so that they might stand a chance of emerging from the administration with their reputations and livelihoods intact. The Mueller investigation came with a complicating factor that made it different from a typical Department of Justice investigation. There was widespread pressure on Mueller to release some sort of report. That meant that not only did his clients have legal exposure but their reputations were on the line. The investigators may stipulate that his clients did nothing wrong. But if Trump was accused of breaking the law and they were depicted as enabling him, it could ruin their names and destroy their careers. All of the Watergate co-conspirators carried the stain of their association with that administration for the rest of their lives. For Burck, to protect his clients’ legal and reputational exposure, the answer was simple: He told his clients that if Trump tells you to do something and you believe it could be interpreted, even in the slightest, as illegal and potentially obstructing the investigation, don’t do it. Eith
er tell Trump to do it himself or tell Trump whatever he wants to hear to get out of the conversation, pretend as if you were going to do it, and then wait Trump out until he becomes preoccupied with something else. Burck reminded his clients that they had failed to do this with the Comey firing, and now that rash act had blossomed into an existential threat to the presidency.
“Start a pattern of hearing what he has to say and not doing it,” Burck told his clients.
No doctrine is foolproof, and the Burck doctrine was no different. But there was a pattern to Trump’s behavior that Burck had discerned that made him believe that stalling could contain the president: Despite Trump’s unparalleled power as president, he seemed afraid to take actions himself.
“Ultimately, he doesn’t want to do things himself,” Burck reminded his clients.
That meant that Trump would often turn to one of his top aides, like McGahn or Priebus, to carry out his desired moves.
In nearly all other situations, a white-collar defense lawyer like Burck would tell his clients that they needed to quit in order to stop working for a boss who was telling them to do things that were potentially illegal. But Burck wanted his clients to remain in their positions. If Burck’s clients quit or were fired, Trump would likely just replace them with more compliant, less principled people, who would be less squeamish about carrying out his every request, or even be initiators. After all, Trump had repeatedly told McGahn that he wanted a lawyer in the model of Roy Cohn—dirty fixer extraordinaire. It was challenging enough with Trump as president; the last thing the White House needed was a support staff of Roy Cohns.
“Don’s view was it was his finger in the dike and ‘if I go this entire thing collapses,’ ” Burck later said. “The problem with the collapse was not political; it was existential. There are going to be riots in the streets and this guy won’t go quietly and there will be a total political meltdown.”
Donald Trump V. the United States : Inside the Struggle to Stop a President (9781984854674) Page 28