A Very Stable Genius

by Philip Rucker

  May had previously been subjected to Trump’s erratic temper, but her aides were shaken by the acrimony of this call. They described it as the worst in May’s career. The president was so churlish that a British official told The Telegraph that he had acted like “Trump the Grump.” The testy conversation set the tone for Trump’s forty-three-hour visit to France. Upon arriving in Paris, Trump was whisked to the U.S. ambassador’s residence, a handsome nineteenth-century manse in the heart of the city. He hunkered down inside, sulking about press coverage of his midterm losses and brooding about recounts in Florida, where his Republican allies would eventually be declared the winners in hotly contested gubernatorial and Senate races.

  The next morning, November 10, Trump woke up early and, at 4:52 Paris time, tweeted a two-part defense of Whitaker. He was slated to attend a series of remembrance services and visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, where 2,289 service members had been laid to rest at the foot of the hill where the Battle of Belleau Wood was waged. Inscribed on the wall of the memorial chapel are the names of 1,060 persons who were missing in action and whose bodies were not recovered. The cemetery grounds also included a monument to U.S. marines.

  Trump would never see the cemetery. He told aides he did not feel like making the trek to Aisne-Marne, which was roughly fifty-five miles from central Paris. The president had been scheduled to travel by helicopter, but it was raining and cloudy, and although the presidential helicopter is equipped to fly in most weather conditions, John Kelly and his deputy, Zach Fuentes, gave Trump an out: he could claim a “weather call” and cancel the cemetery visit. They explained that if they had to travel by motorcade, it would take an hour and a half and snarl traffic in parts of Paris and its surrounding suburbs. Trump leaped at the chance to pass on the cemetery visit. “I don’t think I’m going to go,” he said. Trump was scheduled to participate in other World War I commemorations over the weekend and figured it wouldn’t be a big deal to skip this one.

  Kelly and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, both marines, decided to go in his stead and represent the U.S. delegation. Everything was going to be fine—until Trump turned on the television. That’s when he saw other dignitaries, including French president Emmanuel Macron, German chancellor Angela Merkel, and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, arriving in the rain at other memorial sites outside Paris. Back in the United States, cable news and social media were abuzz with commentary about Trump’s decision to skip the ceremony because of rain. Democrats accused him of disrespecting fallen veterans.

  John Kerry, the former secretary of state and a decorated navy veteran, tweeted, “President @realDonaldTrump a no-show because of raindrops? Those veterans the president didn’t bother to honor fought in the rain, in the mud, in the snow—& many died in trenches for the cause of freedom. Rain didn’t stop them & it shouldn’t have stopped an American president.” The criticism of Trump was worldwide and merciless. Nicholas Soames, a grandson of Winston Churchill’s and a member of the British Parliament, called Trump “pathetic” and “inadequate” because he “couldn’t even defy the weather to pay his respects to The Fallen.”

  As was often the case with Trump’s critics, the commentary got out of hand. There were suggestions from others that the president had skipped the cemetery visit simply because he was afraid to get his hair wet. Kelly and Dunford, meanwhile, appeared dignified and downright presidential as they toured the cemetery with a handful of other Americans and marked the anniversary. They stopped at the marines’ monument atop the hill to pay their respects. Kelly made solemn remarks there about his son Robert, a lieutenant in the U.S. Marines who had been killed in Afghanistan at age twenty-nine.

  As Trump saw Kelly getting positive attention for visiting the memorial, he erupted. He vented to aides that his absence made him look “terrible” in the media. “I could’ve fucking gone!” Trump said. “I was willing to go! They’re killing me for it!” Trump took out his anger on Fuentes. “Your general should’ve convinced me to go,” the president screamed at the deputy chief of staff, referring to Kelly. He faulted Kelly for not having the political savvy to foresee this public relations nightmare and for not persuading him to take the motorcade to the cemetery. “What a stupid decision,” Trump told Fuentes.

  “Sir, we made the best decision we could,” Fuentes replied, not wanting to stoke the president by pushing back.

  Later, talking to other advisers, Trump shirked any responsibility for bailing on the cemetery visit. “It was John Kelly’s decision [that] I couldn’t go,” Trump said. “I would’ve been happy to go. I don’t care about the rain.”

  On November 11, Trump was still smarting when he attended an Armistice Day ceremony at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe, the Roman-style arch that stands as the grandest war memorial in Paris. More than sixty world leaders attended to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of bugles and church bells sounding throughout France to mark the end of World War I. Before the ceremony began, dozens of the visiting dignitaries marched shoulder to shoulder along the Champs-Élysées toward the arch as military jets left streaks of red, white, and blue smoke in the Parisian sky. But Trump did not participate in the march, nor did Russian president Vladimir Putin. They arrived at the arch instead via individual motorcades. Bundled up in a black overcoat, Trump took his seat next to Merkel, a few chairs down from Putin. Trump was in the unusual position of not being the center of attention. He was a mere guest; this was Macron’s show. The choreography was consistent with the outsized role the French played in World War I relative to the United States, but Trump felt slighted to be given a less prominent role.

  Speaking French, Macron delivered a speech that journalists interpreted as a pointed rebuke of Trump, as well as of Putin. In the darkest hours of World War I, Macron said, “that vision of France as a generous nation, of France as a project, of France promoting universal values, was the exact opposite of the egotism of a people who look after only their interests, because patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: nationalism is a betrayal of it. In saying ‘our interests first and who cares about the rest!’ you wipe out what’s most valuable about a nation, what brings it alive, what leads it to greatness and what is most important: its moral values.” Macron warned that “the old demons are reappearing” and summoned the world’s political leaders to “break with the new ‘treason of the intellectuals,’ which is at work and fuels untruths, accepts the injustice consuming our peoples and sustains extremes and present-day obscurantism.”

  Trump complained to advisers about Macron’s speech but didn’t hit back. He attended a luncheon with the other world leaders and then gave a speech of his own at Suresnes American Cemetery and Memorial. Suresnes is closer to Paris than Aisne-Marne and was the resting place of 1,541 U.S. service members. Trump delivered a ten-minute speech in the rain, ditching his umbrella and joking that everyone was “getting drenched,” as if he were trying to make amends for the day before.

  “The American and French patriots of World War I embody the timeless virtues of our two republics: Honor and courage; strength and valor; love and loyalty; grace and glory,” Trump said. “It is our duty to preserve the civilization they defended and to protect the peace they so nobly gave their lives to secure one century ago.”

  Trump then headed to the airport, where he boarded Air Force One for the flight home to Washington. The next day, November 12, Veterans’ Day was observed in the United States, but Trump opted against paying his respects at Arlington National Cemetery, a tradition for presidents—something he later acknowledged he should have done. Instead, Trump spent the holiday inside the White House sulking about the poor media coverage of his Paris trip and tweeting about “the prospect of Presidential Harassment by the Dems” once they take control of the House in January.

  On November 13, Trump came out swinging with an early-morning Twitter broadside against Macron. He wrote, in reference to World Wars I and II, “They were starting to learn German in Paris be
fore the U.S. came along.” He assailed the French for “not fair” trade policies that make it more difficult to sell U.S. wines in France than to sell French wines in the United States. And he said Macron “suffers from a very low Approval Rating in France.”

  “By the way, there is no country more Nationalist than France, very proud people—and rightfully so!” Trump added. “MAKE FRANCE GREAT AGAIN!”

  Reading Trump’s tweets in Paris, Macron was concerned. He immediately called his envoy in Washington, Gérard Araud, and asked what to do. The ambassador called one of his contacts in the White House who advised, “Please do nothing. He’ll have this outburst, but afterwards, if you don’t answer, it’s over. Please tell Macron not to react, not to bother.” This adviser explained that Trump had lashed out at Macron because of media coverage of the French president’s speech: “Trump doesn’t want to lose in the media, especially on Fox. If he appears weak on Fox, that’s totally unacceptable.” Araud passed this advice on to Paris, and Macron followed it.

  The Paris trip proved to be the final straw for Kelly. He would last in the job for less than a month after that. Trump’s advisers could not tell how angry the president truly was at Kelly over the Paris debacle. One posited that he was just looking for an excuse to “cut the cord.” It felt like a wise time to change course. Fueling the president’s feelings throughout the fall was a lobbying campaign from Kelly’s internal enemies, including Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, to ditch him for a more politically minded chief of staff. The pressures were converging on Trump. He felt vulnerable. Robert Mueller’s investigation was nearing an uncertain end. Nancy Pelosi intended to bring investigative heat on the president, if not eventually impeachment charges. More than two dozen Democrats were gearing up to run to unseat him as president. And many of his longest-serving and most trusted staffers were gone or eyeing the exits.

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  Ever since the gruesome murder on October 2 of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident journalist who was a contributing columnist to The Washington Post, Trump and his administration had been on the defensive. Audio and video recordings obtained by the Turkish government showed that Khashoggi had walked into the consulate to obtain documents for his upcoming wedding but was detained inside by a Saudi security team, then interrogated, tortured, killed, and dismembered with a bone saw. The operation was likely ordered by Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia whose government Khashoggi had criticized in his writings, according to U.S. intelligence analysis.

  Throughout October and early November, a mountain of evidence surfaced, but Trump and Kushner, who both had close personal relationships with MBS, still refused to hold the Saudis responsible for the murder, with the president even repeating MBS’s denials. On November 16, the case against the Saudis became even more definitive when the Post’s Shane Harris, Greg Miller, and Josh Dawsey reported that the CIA had concluded with high confidence that MBS had ordered Khashoggi’s assassination. The CIA had also determined that Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States and the crown prince’s brother, had called Khashoggi at MBS’s direction to instruct him to go to the consulate in Istanbul to retrieve his wedding documents and to assure him he would be safe doing so.

  In response, the Trump administration imposed small economic sanctions on seventeen Saudis who U.S. intelligence operatives believed were responsible for the act, but did not implicate MBS. Many U.S. lawmakers said the sanctions were woefully insufficient punishment for the crime. Senator Rand Paul, a Republican ally of Trump’s, tweeted in response, “We are pretending to do something and doing NOTHING.” Meanwhile, Trump cast doubt on the CIA’s assessment by telling reporters it was “very premature” and boasting about Saudi Arabia as “a truly spectacular ally.”

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  Throughout the fall, the president’s lawyers had had reason to feel they were in the catbird seat. With Mueller’s capitulation to take some answers from Trump in writing, they were confident their client wasn’t going to be subpoenaed to testify. The agreement—to provide answers only about Russian interference, the central reason for Mueller’s appointment, and only pertaining to the time until the November 2016 election—was favorable. However, even within these narrow confines, the possible questions were numerous. Did Trump receive regular briefings from Michael Cohen as he pursued the Moscow Trump Tower deal? When did he first learn about WikiLeaks’ having damaging Democratic emails? Did he know anything about Donald Trump Jr.’s being offered a meeting about “dirt” on Hillary Clinton?

  Through September and October, Trump’s lawyers kept telling the public that they were working with the president to complete the written answers to Mueller, but the reality is they were having significant trouble getting time with their client, even though he spent many hours a day watching television. As his lawyer Rudy Giuliani often told reporters, their client was the president, and he was pretty busy.

  On October 24, Trump’s lawyers planned to sit down with their client to go over the written answers. They were only about twenty-five minutes into the meeting when their session came to an abrupt end. Trump’s national security and federal law enforcement teams needed to give him a briefing about pipe bombs that had been mailed to several prominent Democrats, including former president Obama and Hillary Clinton. Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, along with Jane and Martin Raskin, were drafting Trump’s answers on his behalf based on a rolling series of meetings with him to go over his recollections. They had most of them drafted by Halloween and considered the answers so far pretty uncontroversial.

  On the morning of November 1, Sekulow went to the White House for another sit-down with Trump to finalize answers, but the president was interrupted by calls from Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Chinese president Xi Jinping. “There goes my meeting,” Sekulow said with a sigh.

  As eager as Trump’s lawyers were to complete the answers, they had not wanted to submit them before the November 6 midterm elections. But after the GOP’s crushing loss of its House majority, the lawyers faced a new challenge. Trump was in a sour mood, especially after he returned from Paris on November 12, and seemed to get testy when they brought up the subject of the Mueller questions. Then two things happened the week before Thanksgiving—one right after the other—which spooked them. First, sometime around November 15, Sekulow received a strange email from what looked like a fictitious account. It contained a short note that said something along the lines of “This is very important. You may want to see it.” Attached were several documents. Sekulow was afraid to open the attachments, suspicious that it might be a setup. “You’re the criminal lawyer, so tell us what to do,” he said to Giuliani.

  Together with the Raskins, they decided to open the documents. “They were shocking,” Giuliani recalled. “Everything we expected.” One of the attachments was a copy of a draft plea agreement that Mueller’s office had written as part of its ongoing negotiations with Jerome Corsi. Corsi was a longtime Clinton critic and ally of Roger Stone, an off-and-on political adviser to Trump for the previous decade.

  Prosecutors wanted to know how Stone correctly predicted that WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange would leak damaging emails about Clinton in 2016, and they suspected Corsi might provide the missing link. An email from August 2, 2016, showed that Corsi, who was traveling in Europe at the time, alerted Stone to the planned release by their “friend in embassy”—an apparent reference to Assange, who since 2012 had been living in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. “Word is friend in embassy plans 2 more dumps,” Corsi had written. “One shortly after I’m back. 2nd in Oct. Impact planned to be very damaging.”

  What surprised Sekulow and the president’s other lawyers was that Mueller’s draft plea agreement—which Corsi was refusing to sign—specifically referred to Trump. Mueller wanted Corsi to acknowledge that Stone had asked him during the campaign to reach out to WikiLeaks—referred to as “Organization 1” in the document—to find out w
hat material they still had to release. The agreement said Corsi understood that Stone was asking because he was “in regular contact with senior members of the Trump Campaign, including with then-candidate Donald J. Trump.” Corsi complained, through his lawyer, that he felt railroaded into signing this agreement and that Mueller’s investigators told him that they planned to indict him if he didn’t admit the truth. Trump’s lawyers thought that was playing hardball but also found the reference to Trump in the plea agreement draft worrisome. They told their client, and the president instructed them, “Make sure you give it to the FBI right away.”

  The second event happened late on the night of November 15. It started with chatter on Twitter that some mysterious documents showed federal prosecutors had indicted Assange under seal, possibly earlier that year. Due to the mistaken filing, the sealed charges had been mentioned in a court document on a public website. In the document, prosecutors wrote that the unexplained charges “would need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter.”

  Trump’s legal team found these developments unsettling, and they wondered whether Mueller was plotting to expand or extend his investigation into a new untapped vein. They groused about documents being mishandled and concerns about prosecutors leaking damaging material, but their central fear was that Mueller’s probe might be ramping up rather than closing down. The lawyers demanded a meeting with Mueller’s team and with his supervisor, Rod Rosenstein, to discuss their concerns about the Trump reference in the Corsi document and the inadvertent Assange filing. Giuliani, Sekulow, and Jane Raskin all felt strongly that Mueller should be there, so Giuliani specifically requested Mueller personally explain his office’s actions. They also wanted the special counsel’s Justice Department overseers to be present. “Somebody had to know how they were behaving,” Giuliani said.