Cohen later said he released his opening remarks to “shape the narrative” and make sure other witnesses knew what he was saying so they, too, could stay on message. Afterward, Trump’s lawyer called to tell Cohen the president was pleased with his statement.
* * *
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HAVING ABANDONED, AT least for the time being, his efforts to get rid of Mueller or Sessions, Trump renewed his efforts to punish Comey, whose treachery still infuriated the president. He had his lawyer in the Russia investigation, John Dowd, write a long letter to Rosenstein airing Trump’s festering grievances and complaining that Mueller was “inexplicably not investigating the official misconduct of former FBI Director James Comey involving his unlawful conduct and testimony.” Dowd continued, “It is particularly troubling that it was Mr. Comey’s plainly deliberate, unlawful conduct and false Congressional testimony which precipitated your appointment of Special Counsel Mueller. Indeed, Mr. Comey publicly bragged about it.
“I further understand that the Department of Justice has failed to open and commence a full Federal Grand Jury investigation into the obviously corrupt closing of the e-mail investigation of Secretary Clinton including the highly irregular and bizarre conduct of Mr. Comey and then Attorney General Lynch. Nor has it addressed the corruption investigation of the Clinton Foundation.”
Trump kept up the same refrain with Sessions, complaining that the Justice Department should be pursuing Clinton rather than him. “Wow, FBI confirms report that James Comey drafted letter exonerating Crooked Hillary Clinton long before investigation was complete. Many people not interviewed, including Clinton herself. Comey stated under oath that he didn’t do this—obviously a fix? Where is Justice Dept?” Trump tweeted in October. He followed up with another tweet: “ANGER & UNITY” over a “lack of investigation” of Clinton and “the Comey fix,” and concluded, “DO SOMETHING!”
Republicans in Congress were also keeping up the pressure on the FBI. In late October, House Speaker Paul Ryan announced that the FBI had agreed to turn over documents related to the controversial Steele dossier. The announcement alarmed Christopher Steele, who, despite sporadic efforts to reestablish his relationship with the FBI, hadn’t made any progress. But he was still in regular contact with Bruce Ohr at the Justice Department.
“Can we have a word tomorrow, please?” Steele wrote in an email to Ohr. “Just seen a story in the media about the Bureau handing over docs to Congress about my work and relationship with them. Very concerned about this. People’s lives may be endangered.” Ohr conveyed his worries to the FBI. “I can give you an FBI contact if and when it becomes necessary” to protect the source, Ohr wrote to Steele afterward.
Later, Steele did speak to another FBI agent and eventually cooperated with Mueller.
* * *
—
THAT MONTH THE Mueller investigation produced its first conviction: George Papadopoulos, whose comment to an Australian diplomat had set the entire probe in motion. When questioned by FBI agents, Papadopoulos made numerous false statements, all designed to minimize his contact with Russians trying to elect Trump. In that regard, he, too, toed the Trump party line.
When questioned by the FBI, Papadopoulos had readily identified his source for the Clinton “dirt” remark—Joseph Mifsud, a mysterious Maltese professor based in London with ties to the Kremlin. The FBI had interviewed Mifsud when he was passing through Washington, but he had lied, too. Mifsud left the country and stayed beyond the reach of U.S. authorities.
In July, Papadopoulos was arrested after landing at Dulles International Airport. In October he pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI.
“I made a terrible mistake, for which I have paid a terrible price, and am deeply ashamed,” he told the judge at his sentencing. He said he’d lied to “create distance between the issue, myself, and the president.” His lawyer was more explicit: “The President of the United States hindered this investigation more than George Papadopoulos ever could.”
Impressed by his contrition, the judge sentenced him to just fourteen days in jail.
* * *
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ON NOVEMBER 29, the inspector general’s lawyers again questioned McCabe under oath. It was clear by now they were closing in on him.
McCabe said he’d clarified his answers in his phone call on August 1 after spending “a lot of time thinking about it” over the weekend and that “on further recollection, yeah, I remember authorizing Page and Kortan to talk to The Wall Street Journal.” He said, “It was important to me that Beckhard and you all did not have the misimpression about the authorization that I had given to, to Kortan and Page to interact with Devlin Barrett on that article.”
McCabe said he didn’t want the inspector general’s office to “start heading off in a direction on” Kortan and Page “that would not have been accurate.”
But then, Beckhard pointed out, McCabe did know where Page had been despite his earlier answer he didn’t know because he was out of town.
“Yeah, and as I’ve said before, and she made clear, I was very concerned, as I think I said at that time, uncomfortable about discussing things that I thought were outside the scope,” McCabe responded. “And I felt like that’s the direction that the questions were coming from. I didn’t feel comfortable saying, you know, vouching for what was in Strzok’s and Page’s texts and saying what they meant. I had not thought about the Wall Street Journal article and the conversations we had around it in quite a long time. And so, I misspoke.”
* * *
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ON DECEMBER 1, Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations with the Russian ambassador and agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation. This came as no surprise to Trump or his attorneys: Flynn had withdrawn from a joint defense agreement he had with the president nine days earlier, signaling he was about to make a deal. Trump’s lawyer John Dowd had left a voice mail for Flynn’s lawyer that appeared to be a veiled threat as well as encouragement to remain in the president’s fold.
“I’m sympathetic,” Dowd began. “I understand your situation, but let me see if I can’t state it in starker terms. It wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve gone on to make a deal with, and work, with the government.” He continued, “If, on the other hand, we have, there’s information that implicates the President, then we’ve got a national security issue, or maybe a national security issue, I don’t know, some issue, we got to deal with, not only for the President, but for the country.” He added, “We need some kind of heads-up, just for the sake of protecting all our interests.”
Without specifically mentioning a pardon, Dowd reminded him, “Remember what we’ve always said about the President and his feelings toward Flynn and, that still remains.”*
* * *
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THE NEXT DAY, the president tried to focus attention on his sweeping tax bill, which had just won approval in the Senate. Following the debacle of failing to repeal Obamacare, it was the biggest legislative success of his tenure. “It was a fantastic evening last night,” he told White House reporters before boarding his helicopter. “We passed the largest tax cut in the history of our country,” a typical exaggeration (it was not even close to being the largest).
But reporters quickly asked about Flynn. Trump said he wasn’t worried about his cooperation. Asked if the president still stood behind him despite the guilty plea, Trump said, “We’ll see what happens.” To McCabe and others at the FBI, this was appalling: as if Trump’s support for an admitted criminal were conditioned on what Flynn did—or didn’t—say.
Trump followed up with a series of supportive comments about Flynn while taking swipes at his usual targets: “So General Flynn lies to the FBI and his life is destroyed, while Crooked Hillary Clinton, on that now famous FBI holiday ‘interrogation’ with no swearing in and no recording, lies many times . . . and nothing happens to her?
Rigged system, or just a double standard?” Trump tweeted. And “I feel badly for General Flynn. I feel very badly. He’s led a very strong life,” he said later.
* * *
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TOWARD THE END of November, Lisa Page heard from a reporter that Strzok had been removed from Mueller’s team because of anti-Trump texts. There were also rumors that the texts revealed an affair.
Page froze. “I can’t talk about that,” she said.
Page was stricken. One hope to which she’d clung on even the darkest days was that the affair wouldn’t become public knowledge. The inspector general had agreed it wasn’t relevant. It violated no FBI or Justice Department policies. It was purely salacious. Yet now someone was peddling the story.
Page didn’t think the timing was an accident, coming just as Flynn’s guilty plea was making headlines. Casting aspersions on her and the FBI was one way to divert attention from Flynn’s potentially damaging cooperation. Page braced herself.
The next day, her lawyer, Amy Jeffress, called with more bad news. The Post’s Devlin Barrett—the same reporter with whom Page had tangled over the Wall Street Journal story when he was a reporter there—had called. He, too, knew about Strzok and the affair.
Barrett also called Kortan, the FBI’s head of public affairs. The New York Times was calling, too. Kortan alerted Strzok, who felt betrayed that someone had leaked such personal information. But he felt there was nothing he could do or say to stop it.
Page, on the other hand, called Barrett. “Please don’t destroy my life,” she pleaded. “The IG is not looking at the affair. It’s not against any policy. It’s not part of any investigation.”
“My source says it is,” Barrett said.
“Call the IG and confirm it,” Page begged. She said she’d give Michael Horowitz, the inspector general, permission to discuss it with him.
Barrett said he’d already cleared the story with Martin Baron, the Post’s top editor. But he said he’d call Horowitz. Page thought she’d at least bought some time.
But minutes later, the story appeared online with a joint byline, Barrett and Karoun Demirjian.
After stating that Strzok had been removed over text messages, the third paragraph read, “During the Clinton investigation, Strzok was involved in a romantic relationship with FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who worked for Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
“The Post repeatedly sought comment from Strzok and Page but got no response.”
Page was devastated, and furious with Barrett. She called the reporter again: “Don’t lead me on when you have no intention of doing it.” She hung up on him before he could respond.*
Page texted her mother in Los Angeles to warn her that the shocking news was coming: “It’s true and I don’t want to talk about it.”
As Page had feared, news of the affair overshadowed everything else in her life. To the New York Post, she and Strzok were now “those cheatin’ FBI lovebirds.” On Fox News, they were the “FBI’s anti-Trump lovebirds.” The media camped out at her house. Her job search came to an abrupt halt.
Trump leaped on the revelation. “Tainted (no, very dishonest?) FBI ‘agent’s role in Clinton probe under review.’ Led Clinton Email probe,” he tweeted early the next morning, followed by “Report: ‘ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT LED CLINTON EMAIL PROBE’ Now it all starts to make sense!” And then: “After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters—worst in History! But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness.”
The tirade prompted a rare response from Eric Holder, Obama’s attorney general: “Nope. Not letting this go. The FBI’s reputation is not in ‘tatters.’ It’s composed of the same dedicated men and women who have always worked there and who do a great, apolitical job. You’ll find integrity and honesty at FBI headquarters and not at 1600 Penn Ave right now.”
* * *
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A FEW DAYS after Flynn’s guilty plea, Trump asked Sessions to stay behind after a cabinet meeting and again asked him to “unrecuse.” “You’d be a hero,” the president told him. Porter was on hand taking notes: “Not telling you to do anything. [Alan] Dershowitz says POTUS can get involved. Can order AG to investigate. I don’t want to get involved. I’m not going to get involved. I’m not going to do anything or direct you to do anything. I just want to be treated fairly.”
“We are taking steps; whole new leadership,” Sessions responded, according to Porter’s notes.
Among those steps, apparently, was a demotion for Bruce Ohr, Steele’s Justice Department contact. Jim Crowell, Rosenstein’s chief of staff, and Scott Schools, the department’s most senior career attorney, summoned Ohr to say he was being removed from the office of the deputy attorney general, because “news articles” were about to reveal his dealings with Steele and his wife’s position at Fusion and Ohr hadn’t given the department “timely notice” of those relationships (even though Ohr had told several Justice Department officials). But Ohr could keep his job as head of the organized crime drug enforcement task force.
That didn’t last long. On December 7, Fox News reported, “Evidence collected by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence chaired by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., indicates that Ohr met during the 2016 campaign with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the ‘dossier.’” Four days later, Fox reported that Ohr’s wife worked for Fusion.
The next day, Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s personal lawyers, told the Axios columnist Mike Allen, “The Department of Justice and FBI cannot ignore the multiple problems that have been created by these obvious conflicts of interests. These new revelations require the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate.”
Ohr and his wife soon became two of Trump’s favorite Twitter targets, even though hardly anyone knew who Ohr was. Trump threatened to revoke Ohr’s security clearance and later told reporters Ohr was a “disgrace.” He tweeted, “How the hell is Bruce Ohr still employed at the Justice Department? Disgraceful! Witch Hunt!”
This time Ohr was told that Sessions and Rosenstein didn’t want him to have further direct contact with anyone at the White House. Ohr was removed as head of the drug task force and assigned to a low-ranking staff position in the criminal division.
* * *
—
ON DECEMBER 12, the embattled Justice Department took another step that was sure to please Trump. It released to Congress—and in an even more unusual move, invited selected reporters to the Justice Department to review—375 of the raw Page-Strzok texts. There was no effort to explain their meaning or put them in a broader context. Given that they were obtained as part of the inspector general’s review of the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email case, they would ordinarily have been produced—if at all—only after that investigation and report were finished. But it was nowhere near being done.
In one concession to common decency, the Justice Department withheld texts that were purely personal and reflected the affair. Still, just about everyone at the FBI—most of all Strzok and Page themselves—were stunned at this departure from Justice Department policy. And they were furious that it had been Rosenstein himself who had made the decision.
Rosenstein defended his decision the next day at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee. He said he’d approved the decision to give the texts to Congress after consulting with Horowitz but didn’t say why he took the added step of briefing the media. “Our goal,” he said, “is to make sure that it is clear to you and the American people that we are not concealing anything that’s embarrassing to the FBI.”
That was an understatement. A few of the raw texts, taken out of context, were incendiary:
August 16, 2015, Strzok: “[Bernie Sanders is] an idiot like Trump. Figure
they cancel each other out.”
February 13, 2016, Strzok: “Oh, [Trump’s] abysmal. I keep hoping the charade will end and people will just dump him.”
March 4, 2016, Page: “God trump is a loathsome human.”
Strzok: “Omg [Trump’s] an idiot.”
Page: “He’s awful.”
Strzok: “God Hillary should win 100,000,000–0.”
Page: “Also did you hear [Trump] make a comment about the size of his d*ck earlier? This man cannot be president.”
July 19, 2016, Page: “Donald Trump is an enormous d*uche.”
July 21, 2016, Strzok: “Trump is a disaster. I have no idea how destabilizing his Presidency would be.”
October 20, 2016, Strzok: “I am riled up. Trump is a fucking idiot, is unable to provide a coherent answer.”
The texts dominated news coverage for days and suddenly put Mueller and the FBI on the defensive. Their release provided a field day for speculation by right-wing conspiracy theorists. Page and Strzok stood by helplessly as what they thought were private political opinions they were entitled to hold were distorted beyond recognition. To their dismay, no one stepped forward to defend them and the integrity of their work—not Comey, not McCabe, not Mueller, and certainly not their new boss, Christopher Wray. Wray said only that he would “hold people accountable after there has been an appropriate investigation, independent and objective, by the inspector general.”
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