by Bob Woodward
SIXTEEN
On February 13, 2018, Dan Coats and the other top intelligence chiefs gave public testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee about global security threats.
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the senior Democrat on the committee and thus its vice chairman, took a slight detour. “With a simple yes or no, do you agree with Director Pompeo that we haven’t seen a significant decrease in the Russian activity” to interfere in the upcoming 2018 and 2020 U.S. elections?
All agreed with Pompeo, then still head of the CIA, who said to laughter, “I agree with Director Pompeo.”
Under the headline “Russia Is Targeting 2018, Top Spies Warn,” The Washington Post reported the assessment of the intelligence chiefs “stands in contrast to President Trump.” In its front-page story, The New York Times reported, “The warnings were striking in their contrast to President Trump’s public comments.”
The next day at the PDB, Trump was upset. Why did that have to go public? Why wasn’t their testimony behind closed doors in a secure room?
Coats knew this was a sore point with the president and he wanted to be accommodating since the intelligence chiefs had made their point. The Senate Intelligence Committee had insisted on a public hearing, Coats told Trump. “We don’t like it. We protested. We would prefer to do this in a secure environment.”
* * *
After a summit meeting with Putin in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16, 2018, Trump stood next to the Russian leader at a press conference and openly questioned the conclusion of the U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
“They said they think it’s Russia,” Trump said. “I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia.” He added, “I don’t see any reason why it would be.… President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial.”
Trump had met with Putin for over two hours alone without any other U.S. official present other than the translator.
Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who normally supported Trump, tweeted: “It is the most serious mistake of his presidency and must be corrected—immediately.”
John O. Brennan, the former CIA director for President Obama and a persistent Trump critic, went further, tweeting, “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors.’ ” He called Trump “treasonous,” adding, “Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin.”
Coats, some 16 months into the job, was beside himself and released his own rebuke: “We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy, and we will continue to provide unvarnished and objective intelligence in support of our national security.”
As DNI, Coats had access to the most sensitive intelligence—intercepts and the best deep-cover human CIA sources in Russia. He suspected the worst but found nothing that would show Trump was indeed in Putin’s pocket. He and key staff members examined the intelligence as carefully as possible. There was no proof, period. But Coats’s doubts continued, never fully dissipating.
* * *
Coats knew that Russia had a “demographic crisis,” with a predicted 7 percent population drop in the next 30 years. But he also knew Putin was playing his weak hand very well. Trump’s affinity for Putin was never fully explained to Coats. Whenever he would question something about Russia or Putin, the president would say, but they have nukes. They’ve got nukes. Coats must have heard it dozens of times. Once the president put it this way: “Russia has 1,243 fucking nuclear weapons.” Actually, Russia had about 1,600 actively deployed large nuclear warheads and 6,500 overall. Trump believed such a large nuclear arsenal changed the strategic calculus.
* * *
July 19, 2018, was a turning point for Coats. He was attending a public security forum in Aspen, Colorado—an annual gathering in an informal atmosphere. The forum included discussion panels, interviews and long dinners in the cool mountains far from the hot Washington summer. Sitting tieless and relaxed in an afternoon session, Coats was interviewed onstage by NBC foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell. Just before opening a question-and-answer session, Mitchell reported the breaking news that the White House had announced Putin would be visiting the White House in the fall.
“Okaaaaay,” Coats said, laughing it up. “That’s going to be special.”
The Aspen audience of foreign, defense and intelligence policy experts immediately joined the laughter. Coats had made it clear, not very subtly, that he did not know what was going on between Trump and Putin.
Back in Washington, Trump was furious. The director of national intelligence seemed to be making fun of the president. Coats made a public apology, and later went to see the president to try to explain.
“The last thing I wanted to do, Mr. President, was embarrass you. That was not my intent. I was so taken by surprise. I just didn’t handle it the way I should have, and I want to apologize to you for that.”
Trump knew how to shatter someone with pure, conspicuous silence. There was no outburst. He just listened and said absolutely nothing. He was as brutally nonresponsive as a person could be; the art of the cold, silent rebuke.
Coats realized the trust between them, never solid, had evaporated, blown away in a cool July breeze.
A week later at the opening of a White House meeting, Trump said scathingly, “Dan has become a celebrity.”
* * *
The greatest threat to the national security apparatus, Coats believed, was that Trump wanted to ignore any kind of process that went through experts—people steeped in certain issues or certain parts of the world, often for their whole careers. In effect, and often literally, the president said, I don’t need that to be done. I don’t need these people. I don’t need a National Security Council. I just need myself, and perhaps three or four people I trust and work with. Trump didn’t care for assessments or options. It was just whatever Trump wanted to do.
“Oh, Mr. President,” Coats said more than once, “it’s a little more complicated than that.”
Trump would get upset as if he was being undermined and thwarted. The president believed he could pick up the phone and call anybody he wanted. Trump’s attitude was: “I can solve all these problems.” He thought he could get better intelligence on his own. Coats knew that key leaders such as Putin, Xi of China and Erdogan of Turkey would lie to Trump. They played Trump skillfully. They would roll out the red carpet for him, flatter him, then do what they wanted.
Coats felt like he had never cracked the code with Trump.
“I can’t believe what he said,” Coats often exclaimed to his staff, wife or Mattis, reacting to some Trumpian declaration. And then the next day, Trump would say the opposite. Coats’s head was often spinning.
* * *
In late July 2018, just weeks after the Trump-Putin meeting, Coats gathered the intelligence chiefs—FBI director Christopher Wray, NSA director General Paul Nakasone, CIA director Gina Haspel—in the Situation Room for a classified briefing to President Trump on election security and foreign power interference in the upcoming 2018 midterm elections. Haspel had replaced Pompeo at the CIA in May.
Though Coats knew Russian interference was a sore subject with the president, he charged ahead with the briefing. We continue to see a pervasive messaging campaign by Russia to try to weaken and divide the United States, he said. Russia is the chief culprit, but other countries are potentially involved—China, Iran. We will assure the American people that their vote will be counted accurately and won’t be manipulated.
I like that, Trump said.
The NSA and CIA had evidence, highly classified, that the Russians had placed malware in the election registration system in at least two counties in Florida—St. Lucie County and Washington County. There was no evidence yet that the malware had been activated. It was sitting there to be used.
/>
The voting system vendor used by Florida was used by state election registration systems all around the country.
The Russian malware was sophisticated and could be activated in counties with particular demographics. For instance, in areas with higher percentages of Black residents, the malware could erase every tenth voter, almost certainly reducing the total vote count for Democrats. The same could potentially be activated to reduce Trump votes in Republican districts.
The bottom line: The Russians are here.
CIA director Haspel was among the most vocal about the possibly catastrophic impact. This could be potentially more damaging than prior Russian meddling.
Coats said his office was leading an interagency working group that met weekly to integrate their efforts to insure election security.
FBI director Wray said he had a Foreign Influence Task Force working with all of his 56 FBI field offices to deal with the threat that was both broad and deep in scope. The Russian 2016 interference could be duplicated and intensified.
Other than the highly classified information about the malware, Trump said he wanted the intelligence leaders to tell the public.
“You should do this,” Trump said pointing to Coats. “Go public. Dan, take that to the press corps here in the White House.” He wanted it done right away. “That’s great.”
Coats was surprised. It was the only time Trump had asked Coats to convert an intelligence briefing into a presentation for the public.
So on August 2, Coats and most of the intelligence chiefs appeared together in the White House press briefing room. Haspel was unable to make it because of some previous commitment. Coats later chuckled, marveling at her good tradecraft. She knew when to be present and when not to be—particularly when not to be out front publicly.
“The president has specifically directed us to make the matter of election meddling and securing our election process a top priority,” Coats told the press corps. Coats mentioned Russia many times, the other intelligence chiefs just a few times.
Coats couldn’t help himself. “It goes beyond the elections, it goes to Russia’s intent to undermine our democratic values, drive a wedge between our allies, and do a number of nefarious things,” he said.
Asked by a reporter if he would support more sanctions on Russia, Coats stepped out of his intelligence role and went further about the policy of relations with Russia. “I would support any efforts that we can collectively put together to send a signal to Russia that there is a cost—a price to pay for what they’re doing, and if we want to have any kind of relationship whatsoever in dealing with things of mutual interest, the Russians have to stop doing what they’re doing, or it’s simply not going to happen.”
Almost the minute the words came out of his mouth, Coats realized he had overreached by suggesting that the entire U.S.-Russia relationship might be in jeopardy. It was an answer better suited to his former role as senator than his current one as DNI.
At the next intelligence briefing, Trump blew up in a rage and began to chew them all out. What was that briefing? he asked, apparently upset about all the focus on Russia. “Why’d you do that?”
“Because we were told to do that by you,” Coats said.
Mr. President, Haspel said, defending her colleagues though she had not been part of the press conference, that’s exactly what you told us to do. We did that because you said do it. We didn’t say anything more than what you said to go out and do.
Coats’s mind whirled. The incidents of discord kept piling up.
* * *
In one meeting, Trump handed Coats an article on his wife, Marsha, dated September 14, 2018. It was a nice light article, filled with pictures, on her educational, family and evangelical past and what it was like to be the wife of Trump’s top intelligence man.
“Show that to your wife!” Trump said to Coats, almost throwing it in his face. “Give that to your wife.” It almost seemed to be an echo of Trump’s comment about Coats being a celebrity.
At this point, Coats had become so flummoxed by Trump and the tense, almost nonexistent relationship that he interpreted the president’s comment to mean that his wife was more on Trump’s side than Coats.
* * *
Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, publicly alleged in early 2018 that on numerous occasions the intelligence community had collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition. Nunes said that the Obama administration had improperly “unmasked” sensitive intelligence reports so that they could identify who, precisely, was speaking with foreign intelligence targets.
Normally, if a target of U.S. foreign intelligence is under surveillance while speaking with an American citizen, the citizen’s identity is “masked” in the intelligence report with a placeholder such as “US Person 1.” Unmasking was routine when an intelligence or other official needed to know the identity of the U.S. citizen in order to understand the report. For example, if a foreign ambassador were to speak to a U.S. citizen while under surveillance, it would be routine for an intelligence official reviewing the report to request the unmasking of the name of the citizen.
Trump thought Nunes was exposing the spying that he contended had been directed at his campaign. He thought it was great.
After one briefing Coats took the president aside.
“Mr. President,” Coats said, trying to figure out a way to be tactful. Unmasking happens routinely thousands of times a year, he explained. “I know Devin Nunes is trying to be doing everything he can to support you. But he passes information to you that turns out to be false. In the end, it hurts you. Devin has told you something that is not true. If you would contact us first so we can verify that, whether it’s true or not, it puts you in a better position. We could assess whether or not what has been said is backed up by the evidence, or factual, before you go public.”
Trump did not agree at all. “Devin Nunes is the most courageous person in town.” To others, Trump said that Nunes should get the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Coats knew President Dwight Eisenhower had said that the White House is “the loneliest house I’ve ever been in.” It seemed to Coats that Trump was alone a lot in an empty house, particularly on weekends. And that, Coats believed, had to have an impact, increasing Trump’s sense of isolation. Coats found that Trump was becoming more and more paranoid and lonely.
* * *
The president’s phone habits were also troubling to Coats, especially at night. At one point after about nine months in office, Coats had stopped getting transcripts or readouts of the president’s conversations with foreign leaders. He had his staff inquire with the NSC staff. Why? He never got an explanation after several tries. But he never asked the president directly. Coats finally concluded that the mad and maddening phone calls reflected Trump’s style, who he is. And it wasn’t going to be fixed.
One response was to let the disarray flow over him, but Marsha could see her husband internalized the turmoil.
* * *
Coats knew that Pompeo was better at managing the president than the rest of them. He had the president’s confidence. A number of times when Pompeo had still been CIA director, Coats and the other intelligence chiefs would turn to him and say, you’re the best person to present this to the president, because we don’t think he’s going to like it. But if you present it, he may go along. Pompeo was successful in showing that withdrawing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan—one of the president’s longtime goals, even obsessions—would risk another 9/11 style attack.
Pompeo, the West Point graduate and former Army officer, knew not to challenge Trump openly. When Trump wanted to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, Pompeo only argued that Iran was in technical compliance.
* * *
Ted Gistaro, an up-and-coming CIA officer with two decades’ experience, was Trump’s principal briefer at the PDB sessions until 2019, when he was replaced by Beth Sanner. Gistaro, who had started
before the election, pulled all the intelligence together and interacted with the president more than anyone else from the intelligence world. He took copious notes during every Oval Office briefing. Gistaro had a day-to-day compilation of all the formal intelligence presentations and discussions in the Oval Office. Trump trusted him and the two had a good relationship.
But one day the president impatiently lashed out at Gistaro. Coats had never seen Trump target Gistaro, who seemed shocked.
Coats walked out with Gistaro. “Ted, how are you? I’m sorry you had to take that hit.”
“I’m not working for this president,” Gistaro replied sharply. “I’m working for the integrity of the intelligence community.”
* * *
Coats’s relations with Trump soured quickly as the president persisted in asking Coats to stop or get control of the FBI’s Russian investigation. Trump wanted Coats to say there was no evidence of coordination or conspiracy with Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Coats repeatedly tried to point out that the FBI had a criminal side and an intelligence side. He had oversight and a role in the intelligence side. But he had no role, zero, in the criminal investigations—including the Mueller probe of Russian interference.
Trump disagreed, or did not understand, and acted as if Coats was insubordinate.
SEVENTEEN
Mattis and his counterpart, Chinese defense minister Wei Fenghe, boarded a helicopter at the Pentagon on November 8, 2018, for a 10-minute flight south over the Potomac River. Washington glistened on the other side of the tree-lined, meandering river. It was a postcard picture, and the world seemed calm and at peace. It wasn’t, Mattis knew.
