More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
May 9 - September 30, 2019
Our investigation accordingly did not produce evidence that established that the President knew about Flynn’s discussions of sanctions before the Department of Justice notified the White House of those discussions in late January 2017. The evidence also does not establish that Flynn otherwise possessed information damaging to the President that would give the President a personal incentive to end the FBI’s inquiry into Flynn’s conduct.
the President’s initial reluctance to fire Flynn stemmed not from personal regard, but from concern about the negative press that would be generated by firing the National Security Advisor so early in the Administration. And Priebus indicated that the President’s post-firing expressions of support for Flynn were motivated by the President’s desire to keep Flynn from saying negative things about him.
The President had previously criticized Comey for too frequently making headlines and for not attending intelligence briefings at the White House, and the President suspected Comey of leaking certain information to the media.
the President regularly urged officials to get the word out that he had not done anything wrong related to Russia.
On at least two occasions, the President began Presidential Daily Briefings by stating that there was no collusion with Russia and he hoped a press statement to that effect could be issued.
Coats said he finally told the President that Coats’s job was to provide intelligence and not get involved in investigations.
President said he was “following up to see if [Comey] did what [the President] had asked last time—getting out that he personally is not under investigation.”
the President was asked if it was too late for him to ask Comey to step down; the President responded, “No, it’s not too late, but you know, I have confidence in him. We’ll see what happens. You know, it’s going to be interesting.”1656 After the interview, Hicks told the President she thought the President’s comment about Comey should be removed from the broadcast of the interview, but the President wanted to keep it in, which Hicks thought was unusual.
the President acknowledged that he intended to fire Comey regardless of the DOJ recommendation and was thinking of the Russia investigation when he made the decision.
Hunt recalled that Sessions also stated at some point during the conversation that a new start at the FBI would be appropriate and the President should consider replacing Comey as FBI director.1680 According to Sessions, when the meeting concluded, it was clear that the President was unhappy with Comey, but Sessions did not think the President had made the decision to terminate Comey.
In an unplanned press conference late in the evening of May 9, 2017, Spicer told reporters, “It was all [Rosenstein]. No one from the White House. It was a DOJ decision.”1749 That evening and the next morning, White House officials and spokespeople continued to maintain that the President’s decision to terminate Comey was driven by the recommendations the President received from Rosenstein and Sessions.
The President said he had received “hundreds” of messages from FBI employees indicating their support for terminating Comey.
asked McCabe who he had voted for in the 2016 presidential election.
rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director.
Rosenstein decided “on his own” to review Comey’s performance and that Rosenstein decided “on his own” to come to the President
Sanders told this Office that her reference to hearing from “countless members of the FBI” was a “slip of the tongue.”1765 She also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she made “in the heat of the moment” that was not founded on anything.1766
Firing Comey would qualify as an obstructive act if it had the natural and probable effect of interfering with or impeding the investigation—for example, if the termination would have the effect of delaying or disrupting the investigation or providing the President with the opportunity to appoint a director who would take a different approach to the investigation that the President perceived as more protective of his personal interests. Relevant circumstances bearing on that issue include whether the President’s actions had the potential to discourage a successor director or other law
...more
In addition, at the time the President fired Comey, evidence indicates the President knew that Flynn was still under criminal investigation and could potentially be prosecuted,
President’s other stated rationales for why he fired Comey are not similarly supported by the evidence.
Other evidence, however, indicates that the President wanted to protect himself from an investigation into his campaign.
he wanted an Attorney General who would protect him
The President also said he wanted to be able to tell his Attorney General “who to investigate.”
the evidence does indicate that a thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the President personally that the President could have understood to be crimes or that would give rise to personal and political concerns.
some witnesses said that Trump was aware that [+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + at a time when public reports stated that Russian intelligence officials were behind the hacks, and that Trump privately sought information about future WikiLeaks releases.
he did so only after DOJ officials made clear to him that they would resist the White House’s suggestion that they had prompted the process that led to Comey’s termination.
Sessions stepped out of the Oval Office to take a call from Rosenstein, who told him about the Special Counsel appointment, and Sessions then returned to inform the President of the news.
The next day, May 18, 2017, FBI agents delivered to McGahn a preservation notice
the President was holding onto Sessions’s resignation letter, they became concerned that it could be used to influence the Department of Justice.
Bannon recalled telling the President that the purported conflicts were “ridiculous” and that none of them was real or could come close to justifying precluding Mueller from serving as Special Counsel.
McGahn told the President that his “biggest exposure” was not his act of firing Comey but his “other contacts” and “calls,” and his “ask re: Flynn.”
the President’s personal counsel contacted the Special Counsel’s Office and raised concerns about possible conflicts.1840 The President’s counsel cited Mueller’s previous partnership in his law firm, his interview for the FBI Director position, and an asserted personal relationship he had with Comey.1841
On Saturday, June 17, 2017, the President called McGahn and directed him to have the Special Counsel removed.
McGahn recalled feeling trapped because he did not plan to follow the President’s directive but did not know what he would say the next time the President called.1869 McGahn decided he had to resign.
Priebus and Bannon both urged McGahn not to quit, and McGahn ultimately returned to work that Monday and remained in his position.1880 He had not told the President directly that he planned to resign, and when they next saw each other the President did not ask McGahn whether he had followed through with calling Rosenstein.
Substantial evidence, however, supports the conclusion that the President went further and in fact directed McGahn to call Rosenstein to have the Special Counsel removed.
McGahn is a credible witness with no motive to lie or exaggerate given the position he held in the White House.
Second, in the days before the calls to McGahn, the President, through his counsel, had already brought the asserted conflicts to the attention of the Department of Justice. Accordingly, the President had no reason to have McGahn call Rosenstein that weekend to raise conflicts issues that already had been raised.
the President made clear to Priebus and Bannon, who then told Ruddy, that the President was considering terminating the Special Counsel. Also during this time period, the President reached out to Christie to get his thoughts on firing the Special Counsel.
Substantial evidence indicates that the President’s attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the Special Counsel’s oversight of investigations that involved the President’s conduct—and, most immediately, to reports that the President was being investigated for potential obstruction of justice.
news that an obstruction investigation had been opened is what led the President to call McGahn to have the Special Counsel terminated.
There also is evidence that the President knew that he should not have made those calls to McGahn. The President made the calls to McGahn after McGahn had specifically told the President that the White House Counsel’s Office—and McGahn himself—could not be involved in pressing conflicts claims and that the President should consult with his personal counsel if
after the media reported on the President’s actions, he denied that he ever ordered McGahn to have the Special Counsel terminated and made repeated efforts to have McGahn deny the story,
Two days after the President directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President made another attempt to affect the course of the Russia investigation. On June 19, 2017, the President met one-on-one with Corey Lewandowski in the Oval Office and dictated a message to be delivered to Attorney General Sessions that would have had the effect of limiting the Russia investigation to future election interference only.
intelligence intercepts showed that Sessions had discussed campaign-related matters with the Russian ambassador, contrary to what Sessions had said publicly.
McGahn and Priebus discussed the possibility that they would both have to resign rather than carry out the President’s order to fire Sessions.
The statement did not mention the offer of derogatory information about Clinton or any discussion of the Magnitsky Act or U.S. sanctions, which were the principal subjects
the evidence does not establish that the President took steps to prevent the emails or other information about the June 9 meeting from being provided to Congress or the Special Counsel. The series of discussions in which the President sought to limit access to the emails and prevent their public release occurred in the context of developing a press strategy.
According to Sessions, the President asked him to reverse his recusal so that Sessions could direct the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute Hillary Clinton, and the “gist” of the conversation was that the President wanted Sessions to unrecuse from “all of it,” including the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation.
the President asked him if Brand was good, tough, and “on the team.”2023 The President also asked if Porter thought Brand was interested in being responsible for the Special Counsel’s investigation
Porter understood the President to want to find someone to end the Russia investigation
