Privately, however, Trump’s top advisers were exasperated by a crisis they believed would likely recur, considering how much value this president placed in cable news musings and how little value he placed in the expertise of his own government. Some of Trump’s aides felt pity for him, too. He was so obsessed with the belief that the “Deep State” was trying to undermine his presidency by spying on his campaign adviser that the simple acronym “FISA” was like a red flag waved at a bull.
* * *
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Also on January 11, Trump met in the Oval Office about immigration policy with a group of lawmakers, including the Democratic senator Dick Durbin, the Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, and the Republican congressman Bob Goodlatte. As the group discussed a possible bipartisan immigration deal that would protect migrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and African countries, Trump grew frustrated.
“Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” the president asked. He specifically denigrated Haiti, an impoverished Caribbean nation made up mostly of descendants of African slaves, and said the United States should instead allow migrants from Norway, a Nordic country that is one of the world’s whitest and wealthiest, and other countries.
Trump’s comment in the closed-door meeting, which was first reported by The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey, triggered a days-long backlash. White House officials knew Trump had used the vulgarity and did not try to deny the story. The next morning, on January 12, Durbin told reporters that he had personally heard Trump say “things that were hate-filled, vile and racist.”
But Trump later denied what his aides would not, tweeting that his language had been “tough, but this was not the language used.”
* * *
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The night of January 19, sitting in an oversized chair in the White House residence, Trump plotted aloud on the phone with Kelly late into the evening. His voice had a self-assured confidence. Trump believed he had finally found the silver bullet to snuff out the Mueller investigation.
“This can end the investigation into us,” Trump told Kelly. “This is our opportunity to fire Rod. . . . And then it’s over.”
The president sounded pleased, pumped even. “Rod” was Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general and the man empowered to restrain Mueller. Trump’s excitement stemmed from a secret Republican memo that Meadows and other conservative allies in the House had been whispering to him about. They said if they could get permission from the Justice Department to release the memo to the public, the document would undermine Rosenstein by showing his early role in approving questionable surveillance and prove that the Mueller investigation was tainted.
Devin Nunes, who chaired the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, had authored the four-page memo with a key staffer, Kashyap Patel, based on classified documents from the FBI investigation of Trump’s campaign. Hailed as a hero by pro-Trump conservatives and dismissed as a reckless conspiracy theorist by some in the FBI, Nunes claimed in the memo that the bureau had abused its top secret surveillance powers and misled a federal judge in order to launch the Trump investigation in the first place. The memo alleged that the FBI used information from the former British spy Christopher Steele to obtain a warrant to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser. Nunes insisted the FBI failed to alert the court to Steele’s anti-Trump agenda. For weeks now, Nunes had been sparring with top Justice Department officials over releasing the memo. He and Rosenstein had had a cordial, at times even friendly relationship, but the congressman’s obsession with alleged malfeasance in the Russia investigation drove a wedge between them.
On January 10, Nunes and Patel had met in a secured room at the Capitol with Rosenstein, Wray, Justice Department legislative affairs chief Stephen Boyd, FBI legislative affairs chief Gregory Brower, and others to go over their declassification requests. The meeting got off to a hostile start when Patel, who in 2017 had already established himself as a Justice Department antagonist by threatening to hold Rosenstein and Wray in contempt, insisted that Brower leave the room because he said Nunes’s committee was investigating him for obstructing their congressional investigation.
Rosenstein thought this was more childish bullying from the Nunes crowd. “We are trying to accommodate your requests,” he told Patel. “Director Wray and I cannot personally review all the documents. We need congressional liaisons to accomplish that. Threatening them over bogus allegations is not helpful if you want them to cooperate with you.”
Later in the meeting, Rosenstein brought up Patel’s past shenanigans and told Nunes, “If you really did prosecute me for contempt, I would call you and your staffers as defense witnesses to prove that I am operating in good faith, so I request that you preserve relevant text messages and emails.”
On January 19, Nunes called Rosenstein and Wray with an update. He told them he would soon be releasing a memo criticizing the FBI’s FISA process. Rosenstein took the call as he was being driven to a memorial service for his former colleague in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland Deborah Johnston. Rosenstein was upset with Nunes. “You told Director Wray and me that you were not working on a report attacking the FBI,” he told the congressman. “I repeatedly asked you to give us any evidence of wrongdoing so that we could investigate.”
“It is a memo, not a report,” Nunes replied. He said he believed there had been “systematic FISA abuse” and a “conspiracy.”
“Who are the suspects and what are the crimes?” Rosenstein asked.
Nunes did not say.
On the phone the night of January 19, Trump told Kelly that public chatter about the Nunes memo and its revelations of a corrupt investigation were “gaining traction.” He predicted that when the memo’s contents became public, he would have ample justification to fire Rosenstein for not reining in such a flawed investigation. Finally, Trump said, the memo would reveal efforts by the intelligence and national security establishment he dubbed the “Deep State” to delegitimize his election victory.
“It’s great, right?” Trump asked Kelly.
“Yes, sir,” the chief of staff replied.
* * *
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Trump’s burst of optimism about ending the Mueller investigation came amid secret preparations by his legal team and the White House for an interview with the special counsel. Since New Year’s Day, Trump’s lawyers had been working with Kelly to set up a tentative interview at Camp David, the private presidential retreat in Maryland where guests could go undetected by the media. They were so far along in the process that they had made arrangements for helicopters to fly in Trump and his lawyers, and for Mueller and his team to enter the compound secretly. They had even set a date: January 27.
Trump’s personal lawyers, John Dowd and Jay Sekulow, recognized the dangers of letting their client sit down with prosecutors and how a man who had such difficulty sticking to the facts could carelessly walk into a perjury accusation. Sekulow had been the most wary of the idea, and didn’t think Mueller was justified in asking. But Trump was adamant about doing the interview because he believed he could convince Mueller of his innocence and be cleared of wrongdoing. Trump’s lawyers concluded that disappointing the boss could be far more ominous. Dowd was wary of a presidential sit-down, but the lawyers moved ahead with preparations.
Trump’s lawyers tried to hedge the risks for the president by pressing Mueller and James Quarles for more specificity about the nature of the questions they would ask Trump. Quarles complied with more details. But in several discussions with Mueller’s team, Dowd felt Mueller was backing away from what Dowd considered earlier commitments and adding new conditions for the interview. Within days, Dowd decided to pull the plug. He called Quarles to tell him the interview was off. Sekulow and Cobb were surprised when they learned of the decision a few days later; Dowd had not run the idea by his fellow lawyers first. Explaining his reluctance to proceed with the interview, Dowd told Trump that it would
have been a suicide mission and he could not have sent him into that maw.
“I’ll just go talk to them,” Trump replied. “Why can’t I just talk to them?”
Dowd told the president, “We can’t do this.”
“Why can’t I do this?” Trump shot back.
In various conversations, Dowd tried to lay out the risks of just one misstep in one answer to one question—to show Trump how easy it would be for him to say something that wasn’t true, even if he didn’t mean to lie.
Contrary to previous accounts, Dowd did not hold a murder board session or mock interview with the president. It was just Dowd face-to-face with the president, trying out a few questions to attempt to convince him that an interview with Mueller would be not some boardroom handshake deal but rather a torture session and final exam that he was bound to fail.
Dowd got through only one or two questions before it became obvious the president was winging it. It was palpably clear that he was not versed on the facts of the case and had not given much if any thought to how he might answer Mueller’s questions. He said versions of “I did this” and “I did that”—framing himself as the guy in charge, the one at the wheel. Dowd pointed out that several of his claims were inaccurate and conflicted with the accounts of events provided by multiple witnesses.
Trump disputed the facts. He got frustrated when Dowd pointed out his errors and imperfections. Dowd tried to explain to Trump something he had sought to ingrain in his client many times before: there was a momentous difference between saying “No” and saying “I don’t recall.” Trump often bragged of having “the world’s greatest memory,” but Dowd reminded him that in a legal setting it was perfectly fine—even preferable—to say, “I don’t recall.”
Trump’s friends and advisers had long observed that he had an amazing ability to disconnect from facts and remember experiences the way it suited him at the moment, a dangerous habit when being interviewed by federal prosecutors in a criminal investigation.
“The problem with him: he tells you what he thinks he knows or what he thinks he remembers,” said one adviser. “He might actually believe it. And he may not think he is lying. When you confront him and say, but no, ‘Remember this fact?’ He’ll say, ‘That’s right.’ He’ll work closer to the truth. It’s not an inattention to the detail. It’s his feeling that the details and pieces are irrelevant. He’s a big-picture, broad-point guy. He says, ‘Hey, I know this big point is true. Who cares about the other stuff?’”
Lying has been part of Trump’s act all his life. “People ask me if the president lies. Are you nuts? He’s a fucking total liar,” Anthony Scaramucci said. “He lies all the time. Trump called me one night after I was on Bill Maher and he said, ‘How come you always fucking figure me out?’ I said, ‘I’ve seen you around for twenty years. I know your act. I know when you’re saying shit you don’t really mean, and I know when you’re saying bullshit.’ He laughed.”
Scaramucci recalled that he then asked Trump, “Are you an act?” Trump replied, “I’m a total act and I don’t understand why people don’t get it.”
In his back-and-forth with Dowd over the interview in mid-January, Trump continued to fume about the shift in plans. He was confused and angry that he couldn’t proceed and get the interview over with. Dowd later called a colleague to complain about the tongue-lashing he had received from Trump. “I don’t need this shit. I’m seventy-six years old,” Dowd told the colleague. “I don’t need to be treated like this.” Dowd later contested this account and claimed Trump always treated him courteously.
Trump begrudgingly resigned himself to the notion that his lawyers were making the right call in deciding to cancel the interview. However, he then tried to convince the public of the opposite, announcing that the interview was very much still on the table even after Dowd had privately canceled it.
On the afternoon of January 24, Trump was meeting with some of his advisers when he abruptly stood up and said, “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Down the hall in the chief of staff’s office, Kelly had been meeting with a group of about twenty reporters for a briefing on the administration’s immigration policy. Trump was loath to have a group of reporters’ tape recorders running for someone other than himself, so he surprised the journalists—and their host, Kelly—by swinging open the door and walking in.
“Hello, everybody,” the president said cheerfully. “How’re we all doing?”
Trump was in a jovial mood and began an impromptu question-and-answer session. He bragged about how well the economy was doing and talked up his efforts to secure the border and set new standards about “chain migration.” Less than ten minutes into the freewheeling session, a reporter asked Trump one of the questions dominating press coverage that month: Was the president still willing to sit down for an interview with Mueller?
“I’m looking forward to it, actually,” Trump said. “Here’s the story, just so you understand. There’s been no collusion whatsoever. There’s no obstruction whatsoever, and I’m looking forward to it.”
Kelly pursed his lips. He knew Trump had just stretched the truth, suggesting an interview was just over the horizon. “I guess they are talking about two or three weeks,” Trump said about when the interview would likely take place. “I have to say, subject to my lawyers and all of that, but I would love to do it.”
That caveat—“subject to my lawyers and all of that”—was a major one for Trump. To the reporters and the public, Trump sounded as if he were planning an interview. To his lawyers, his careful word choice telegraphed that he was finally on board with their plan to resist the interview.
Trump also told the reporters that he felt it was “disturbing” that the FBI investigation of his campaign was so biased, with two FBI officials, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, discussing their fear of a Trump presidency. Trump insisted that he had defeated Hillary Clinton entirely on his own merit.
“The fact is you people won’t say this, but I’ll say it,” Trump added. “I was a much better candidate than her. You always say she was a bad candidate. You never say I was a good candidate. I was one of the greatest candidates. Nobody else would have beaten the Clinton machine, as crooked as it was. But I was a great candidate. Someday you’re going to say that! Goodbye, everybody.”
And then he was gone.
The president’s sudden visit with reporters led to another classic White House cleanup. By the time press aides learned that Trump had said he was looking forward to his interview with Mueller, it was leading the cable news channels. Cobb issued a statement explaining that Trump had spoken hurriedly off the cuff and intended to say only that he was willing to meet with Mueller, not that he would be meeting with Mueller.
“He’s ready to meet with them, but he’ll be guided by the advice of his personal counsel,” Cobb said.
Later that afternoon, Trump headed up to the residence to get ready for a big trip. The president was scheduled to fly out that evening to Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he was slated to meet with a number of foreign counterparts. With Trump up in his room, Kelly returned to his long list of chores. He called Goodlatte to talk with the Republican congressman about a budget resolution. Standard preparation for the legislative week ahead. Then Kelly let down his guard a bit. In a woe-is-me tone, he shared with Goodlatte that Trump’s pop-in to the press and claim of doing an interview with Mueller came out of nowhere and were not part of any plan or strategy.
“I don’t envy you,” Goodlatte told Kelly.
* * *
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That evening, January 24, waiting in the White House before departing for Davos, Trump fumed at the television screen. He was engaging in one of his guilty pleasures: hate-watching CNN. He called Kelly, this time incensed. He cursed the Justice Department.
White House aides sometimes informally measured the power of Trump’s moods on an informal scale of one to ten. When Trump rated a one or two, advisers worried that he was so bored he had st
opped listening entirely. At a nine or ten, he sounded over the phone to his advisers as if he might be jumping up and down, and some fretted whether they should ask a Secret Service agent to check on him.
This night, Kelly was experiencing Trump at a nine.
By now Kelly had gone home for the day. He was skipping the Davos trip to stay in Washington and work with lawmakers on an immigration plan. Trump shared with Kelly that he found the guest on CNN’s 7:00 p.m. newscast riveting and the topic infuriating. The Republican congressman Trey Gowdy was criticizing the latest “Deep State” insurgency against the president: The Justice Department’s senior leaders and the FBI director were saying that House Republicans could not make their secret memo public because it could reveal sensitive secrets about an ongoing probe. Gowdy told the CNN host Erin Burnett that the Justice Department appeared to be trying to hide something. Trump was supposed to walk out to the South Lawn to board Marine One, but first he conferred with Kelly about Gowdy’s comments.
What followed was Trump once again plotting to snuff out a federal investigation, an episode that apparently went undetected by Mueller, for it garnered no mention in the special counsel’s final report.
Trump howled to Kelly, with the chief of staff able to hear Gowdy talking on the television in the background.
“These fucking Justice people are blocking the release, and they are supposed to be my people!” Trump roared. “I don’t understand why the Trump Justice Department won’t release a pro-Trump memo that helps me! It’s the worst thing anyone has ever seen.”
Trump grew more enraged as he kept talking.
“This is my Justice Department. They are supposed to be my people,” Trump told Kelly. “This is the ‘Deep State.’ . . . Mueller’s all over it.”
Gowdy described on television the advice he would give the president. He suggested Trump intervene to declassify the memo, then share these secrets of the origins of the FBI probe with the American people.
A Very Stable Genius Page 21
