by Bob Woodward
Trump denied he had said that or anything like it.
What did you say? Dowd asked the president.
“Well, I didn’t say that.” Trump said Comey had raised the prospect of Trump coming to FBI headquarters to talk to the agents. “And so I was asking him when he wanted me to do that. And he said he would get back to me. But I never commented on Flynn. I mean, as far as I was concerned, Flynn was over.”
* * *
Dowd continued his own inquiry, being briefed on the testimony of all known witnesses and reviewing documents.
He wanted to establish a relationship with Mueller, whom he knew. Years ago at a Marine Corps parade, Dowd had run into Mueller when he was FBI director.
“What are you up to?” Mueller asked.
“I’m representing Congressman Don Young.”
“That crook?” Mueller replied. “How could you do that?”
“That’s our system,” answered Dowd, who was offended that the FBI director would speak that way. Young was never charged, though the House Ethics Committee later rebuked him. Young soon became the longest-serving member of Congress.
While Mueller had not yet made a specific request for documents, one would likely be coming soon. White House Counsel Don McGahn did not want to turn over much of anything. He wanted the president to assert privileges, such as executive privilege.
Dowd disagreed with McGahn. If there was nothing to hide, Trump’s cooperation could help the prosecutor perhaps see it his way. He recommended to Trump that “we’d get a hell of a lot more with honey than we would with vinegar.”
“I have friends who tell me we ought to tell them to go fuck themselves,” the president said in one call. “I don’t trust these guys.” Dowd argued that cooperation would speed up the resolution and Trump eventually approved the honey-over-vinegar approach.
Dowd recommended hiring Ty Cobb, an experienced Washington lawyer known for his white handlebar mustache (Dowd called him “Colonel Sanders” after the Kentucky Fried Chicken icon) as special counsel on the White House staff. Cobb would be in charge of the delivery of documents to Mueller and his team. Dowd couldn’t do this because he was Trump’s personal lawyer, and the documents were White House documents. Cobb was really brought in to override McGahn’s advice to fight document requests.
Dowd emphasized to the president, “I want to build a relationship where we engage [Mueller] and then there are no secrets. And that can be done.”
Dowd went to his first meeting with Mueller and his chief deputy, James “Jim” Quarles, a veteran of the Watergate special prosecutor’s office 40 years earlier, at the special counsel’s office on June 16 at 1 p.m.
“We’re not waiving objections to your appointment,” Dowd said, “and how the hell you got here.” Rosenstein’s order was too broad and no one in the Justice Department had the authority to investigate any matter they stumbled on. “That order will not stand. But we are not going to throw rocks.”
Mueller did not respond. He was a master of silence.
“The president has authorized me to tell you he will cooperate,” Dowd said. His words to me were, “Tell Bob I respect him. I’ll cooperate.”
Mueller seemed relieved.
“What do you need?” Dowd asked him. “We’ll get it to you. But let’s get this investigation done.” The president’s position is that he has nothing to hide. He is not happy with the investigation to say the least but we want to avoid a protracted battle. “But we’d like you to reciprocate. And that is, engage.”
“John,” Mueller said as he stood, “the best cases are ones where we can fully engage.”
“The reason we’re cooperating is to get this damn thing over with,” Dowd said. “We’re not going to assert any privileges. This is over the objection of Don McGahn, but the president wants to do it. He wants you to see everything, talk to everyone.”
Ty Cobb had come up with a way to maintain, but get around, an executive privilege claim on testimony or documents. He had told Mueller, “Bob, we’re going to give it to you. We’re not waiving the privilege. After you see it, and at the end if you feel like you’ve got to use it, let us know and we’ll get you the waiver. As to the balance that’s in your archives, you’ve got to return them with the privilege.”
Mueller seemed thrilled that he would see all the documents. Let’s just do that verbally, said Mueller and Quarles. We don’t want to create a lot of paper.
Dowd said that was fine. No written record.
“John,” Mueller said, “you know me. I don’t let any grass grow under me.” Dowd, a veteran of special investigations, knew they could go on endlessly. The length of these investigations often became the abuse. Mueller said, “Jim will be the lead for me, he’ll be the deputy, but you guys can call me anytime and I’ll see you.”
“Great,” said Dowd, “same here. You guys need something, call me. And we’ll get it for you or we’ll answer whatever question or help get witnesses.”
* * *
The case that was being built, as reported in The New York Times and The Washington Post, had to be examined seriously. On alleged collusion the questions included Trump’s 2013 trip to Moscow, what he might have known about efforts by his former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to do business in Russia during the campaign, and what Trump might have known about other aides, such as Roger Stone’s alleged role in Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails.
In a celebrated July 27 news conference during the 2016 campaign, Trump had invited Russia to publish the emails that Clinton’s lawyer had deleted because he had determined they were not relevant to the FBI investigation.
“Russia, if you’re listening,” candidate Trump said, “I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
He later tweeted, “If Russia or any other country or person has Hillary Clinton’s 30,000 illegally deleted emails, perhaps they should share them with the FBI!” The next day he said, “Of course I’m being sarcastic.”
Dowd thought that the declaration and request to Russia, sarcastic or not, hardly suggested hidden subterfuge to work with Russia that seemed to be the focus of the Mueller investigation.
The major problem might be allegations of obstructing justice by urging Comey to drop the Flynn investigation, and then firing Comey. But Dowd believed that the president’s Article II constitutional authority clearly encompassed firing an FBI director.
How Mueller might look at this would turn on the evidence of Trump’s conduct. The key would be fathoming Trump’s intent. Was there a “corrupt” motive, as required by the statute, in his actions to impede justice?
In most cases that is a high bar and generally prosecutors need evidence such as urging others to lie to investigators, destroying documents or ordering the payment of money for illegal actions, such as buying the silence of witnesses as Nixon had in Watergate.
The thousands of hours of secret Nixon tape recordings provided an unusual clarity about the obstruction of justice or cover-up in Watergate.
Dowd had found no Trump tapes or witnesses unfavorable to Trump other than Comey.
At the same time, he had been a prosecutor. He knew the culture. Prosecutors like to make cases, especially high-profile ones.
* * *
Inside the White House, it was obvious Mueller’s Russian investigation was getting to Trump. Those who spent the most time in the West Wing and Oval Office found it was consuming too much of his emotional energy. It was a real distraction. Trump had a hard time compartmentalizing. Entire days were consumed by his frustration with Mueller, Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein.
Even during meetings on policy issues that were Trump obsessions, like Chinese tariffs, he would bring up the Mueller investigation. Often it was about what he had seen on TV. “How is this playing?” he asked. “What do you think I should do to push back?”
The staff in the meetings who were not on the
legal team did not want to offer ideas.
Trump rarely missed a chance to declare that it was unfair and a “witch hunt.”
It was driving him crazy, Porter saw. It would ebb and flow, but there were times when Trump became consumed by it, and would become distracted from the job and the business of being president. He felt it was unfair, and he had done nothing wrong. There were people investigating him who seemed to have unlimited powers.
Trump was worried about wiretaps that might have been authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Porter told others Trump was “very bothered by the possibility of FISA wiretaps in the campaign . . . a sense of sort of feeling violated. But that there was someone that had some power over him where he wasn’t the top dog.”
Trump had another objection to Mueller. “I can’t be president,” he said. “It’s like I have my hands tied behind my back because I can’t do anything that looks like it’s favorable to Russia or to Putin because of Mueller.”
* * *
West Wingers and those who traveled regularly with Trump noticed that he and Melania seemed to have some sincere affection for each other despite media speculation. But she operated independently. They ate dinner together at times, spent some time together; but they never really seemed to merge their lives.
Melania’s primary concern was their son, Barron. “She’s obsessed with Barron,” one person said. “That is her focus 100 percent.”
Trump gave some private advice to a friend who had acknowledged some bad behavior toward women. Real power is fear. It’s all about strength. Never show weakness. You’ve always got to be strong. Don’t be bullied. There is no choice.
“You’ve got to deny, deny, deny and push back on these women,” he said. “If you admit to anything and any culpability, then you’re dead. That was a big mistake you made. You didn’t come out guns blazing and just challenge them. You showed weakness. You’ve got to be strong. You’ve got to be aggressive. You’ve got to push back hard. You’ve got to deny anything that’s said about you. Never admit.”
* * *
Trump debated tariffs for months. He wanted to impose a 25 percent tariff on auto imports. “I want an executive order,” he said.
He did not have the legal authority to do that, Porter said.
“Fine, we’ll challenge it in court. But I don’t care. Let’s just do it!”
Another time the president told Porter, “Go down to your office right now. Get it all written up. Bring me my tariffs!”
One day in the Oval Office, Cohn brought in the latest job numbers to Trump and Pence.
“I have the most perfect job numbers you’re ever going to see,” Cohn said.
“It’s all because of my tariffs,” Trump said. “They’re working.”
Trump had yet to impose any tariffs, but he believed they were a good idea and knew Cohn disagreed with him.
“You’re a fucking asshole,” Cohn said, half-joking and smacking Trump gently on the arm.
Cohn turned to a Secret Service agent. “I just hit the president. If you want to shoot me, go ahead.”
Cohn wrote a joke for Trump to use at the Gridiron Dinner: “We’ve made enormous progress on the wall. All the drawings are done. All the excavating’s done. All the engineering is done. The only thing we’ve been stumbling with is we haven’t been able to figure out how to stretch the word ‘Trump’ over 1,200 miles.”
Trump wouldn’t use it.
* * *
Porter observed that anytime anybody challenged Trump—in a policy debate, in court, in the public square—his natural instinct seemed to be that if he was not exerting strength, he was failing.
He stopped counting the times that Trump vented about Sessions. His anger never went away. Sessions’s recusal was a wound that remained open.
Jeff Sessions, Trump said in one of many versions, was an abject failure. He was not loyal. If he had any balls, if he had been a strong guy, he would’ve just said, I’m not going to recuse. I’m the attorney general. I can do whatever I want.
CHAPTER
22
Within the intelligence and military world there exist what President Obama once told me are “our deep secrets.” These are matters so sensitive, involving sources and methods, that only a handful of people including the president and key military and intelligence officials know about them.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks the American espionage establishment ballooned, making secret surveillance a way of life.
Near the end of May 2017, I learned of one such “deep secret.” North Korea was accelerating both its missile and nuclear weapons programs at an astonishing rate, and would “well within a year” have a ballistic missile with a nuclear weapon that perhaps could reach the United States mainland. Previously the intelligence showed North Korea would not have that capability for at least two years if not longer. This new intelligence was a rare earthquake in the intelligence world, but it did not travel far. It was to be protected at almost any cost.
In response, a preliminary Top Secret Pentagon war plan called for the United States to send escalation signals to put the country on a war footing: reinforce the Korean Peninsula with two or three aircraft carriers; keep more U.S. Navy attack submarines in the region (capable of firing barrages of Tomahawk missiles); add another squadron of F-22s and more B-2 stealth bombers. Perhaps even withdraw U.S. dependents, family members of the 28,500 U.S. military in South Korea. Add more ground forces, thicken the theater missile defense systems, disperse troops to make them less vulnerable, harden infrastructure to help withstand artillery attacks.
I began checking around about whether North Korea was “well within a year” of a new ICBM nuclear weapon capability. At the top levels of the Pentagon, I was told “There is nothing like that,” providing an absolute knockdown of my information.
At the top levels of the intelligence community, I was told “there was nothing new” and “no significant change” in the two-year-plus assessment. There was nothing to be alarmed about.
I talked with a person with the broadest, most authoritative access to such current intelligence. The absolute denials were repeated emphatically, categorically. Then something happened that had never occurred in 46 years of reporting. This person said, “If I am wrong I will apologize to you.”
That was definitely a first. But the meaning was unclear. I have had officials lie outright about something very sensitive. Asked later, they have said they felt it was better to dissemble. Why agree to talk or meet? Silence could be interpreted as confirmation, they usually replied. That is the real world of reporting on sensitive intelligence matters. The offer to apologize if wrong had never happened before to me.
I decided not to seek out the person to get the apology, but I was soon entitled to one.
* * *
Just over a month later, on July 3, North Korea successfully tested its first ICBM, a Hwasong-14. The missile only traveled 930 kilometers and was in the air only 37 minutes, but the intelligence showed that with a flatter trajectory, it could possibly have reached the United States mainland. This was what my source had warned about two months earlier.
Trump was briefed that night. The next day, July 4, he hosted an Independence Day celebration at the White House. That afternoon, McMaster chaired an emergency principals meeting in the Situation Room. Trump was not present.
CIA Director Pompeo said there was confirmation of an ICBM. It had been fired via an eight-axle mobile vehicle that had been imported from China. So much for the hope that China would be a restraining influence on North Korea.
Tillerson said he had been unable to contact the Chinese, but had called for an emergency meeting in the U.N. Security Council. “We need to work with Russia to get their support and focus on countries that are not abiding by the existing sanctions,” he said. “This ought to be a topic of discussion at the G20, especially with Japan and the Republic of Korea.”
Tillerson raised the concern that the administration was
targeting China with steel tariffs at a time when they needed its help to corral North Korea. He was also worried about allies’ reactions to Trump’s threatened steel tariffs, like Japan, South Korea and the European Union.
Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said, “China has been avoiding us, but eventually they agreed to a U.N. Security Council meeting tomorrow.” The U.S. needed to identify more companies who did business with North Korea for additional sanctions.
“We need a persuasive press statement to gain allies on this,” Mattis said. “We don’t want to show any daylight between us and the Republic of Korea.” He walked through military contingency plans, including possible strikes in North Korea—the full range, from limited pinpoints to an all-out attack, and even a leadership strike. The U.S. didn’t have all of the ships and other assets it might need in the region. They were not ready for every contingency, and it would take time to get everything in line.
“Our first choice ought to be U.N.-led sanctions,” Mnuchin said. “Otherwise we can have another dozen primary sanctions available.”
Mike Rogers, NSA director, outlined the United States’ defensive posture on cyber security. He did not address offensive cyber attack capabilities.
“There really ought to be a question of how much technical data we share with China and Russia,” cautioned DNI Dan Coats, “in terms of what we picked up about the ICBM and other things.” U.S. intelligence had a pretty full picture, and it had to be protected.
“We’re going to find out pretty soon here whether China is with us as promised,” said Tillerson. If the United States was ready to impose a ban on American citizens traveling to North Korea, we ought to get other countries to do the same.
