D. Events leading up to and surrounding termination of FBI Director Comey (P.324/62)
Overview: Comey was scheduled to testify before Congress on May 3, 2017. Leading up to that testimony, Trump continued to tell advisors that he wanted Comey to make it public that the President was not under investigation. At the hearing itself, Comey declined to answer questions about the scope or subjects of the Russia investigation and did not state publicly that the President was NOT under investigation. Two days later, the President told close aides he was going to fire Comey, and on May 9, he did so. Trump used his official termination letter to make public that Comey had on three occasions informed him that he was not under investigation. The President decided to fire Comey before receiving advice or a recommendation from the DOJ, but he approved an initial public account of the termination that attributed it to a recommendation from the DOJ based on Comey’s handling of the Clinton email investigation. After Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein resisted attributing the firing to his recommendation, Trump acknowledged that he intended to fire Comey regardless of the DOJ recommendation and was thinking of the Russia investigation when he made the decision. Trump also told the Russian Foreign Minister, “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off…I’m not under investigation.”
May 3, 2017 Comey scheduled to testify in FBI oversight hearing. McGahn recalls that in the week leading up to the hearing, Trump had said it would be the last straw if Comey did not take the opportunity to set the record straight by publicly announcing the President was not under investigation.
In the aftermath of Comey’s May 3rd testimony, Trump met with McGahn, Sessions and Sessions’ Chief of Staff Jody Hunt. Trump was very upset and directed his anger at Sessions saying, “This is terrible Jeff. It’s all because you recused.” Trump compared Sessions failure to the idea that former Attorney’s General Eric Holder and Robert Kennedy protected the President; Sessions recusal was unfair and it was interfering with his ability to govern and undermined his authority with foreign leaders.
May 3-4, 2017, Steve Bannon said Trump told him eight times: “He (Comey) told me three times I was not under investigation. He’s a show-boater. He’s a grandstander. I don’t know any Russians. There was no collusion.
May 5, 2017 – while staying at his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump told senior advisor Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner he wanted to remove Comey from office and said he had an idea for a letter that would be used for that announcement. Following the dinner, Stephen Miller drafted the letter based on notes taken from Trump (and research he had already conducted) to support Trump’s arguments for firing. Miller said he believed it was important to show Comey was not being terminated based on the Mueller investigation but Trump wanted to establish that Comey had been under a “review period” and did not have assurance from him that he would be permitted to keep his job.
May 6-7, 2017 weekend - Trump edits the drafted letter and is adamant to Miller he does not tell anyone at the White House what they were preparing because he was worried about leaks. Trump made it clear in his revisions that the most important fact to show was that Comey was not terminated based on any Russian investigation. Miller said the President wanted another fact to be established: that Comey had been under a “review period” with no assurance yet from Trump that he would be permitted to keep his job. The letter stated that Comey had “asked the president that he consider his staying on,” but the President had concluded he had no alternative but to find new leadership for the Bureau, ,”a leader that restores confidence and trust.”
May 8, 2017 – Morning: Oval office meeting with McGahn, Priebus (not at weekend dinner) and Miller where Trump told them he had decided to terminate Comey. Trump read the termination letter he and Miller drafted and said the decision was made. No discussion. To slow things down, McGahn told the President that DOJ leadership was discussing Comey’s future and suggested he (White House Counsel) should talk with Sessions and Rod Rosenstein (Attorney General and Assistant AG)
Noon: Sessions, Rosenstein and Hunt met with McGahn and White House Counsel’s office attorney, Uttam Dhillon, at the White House. McGahn told them Trump had decided to fire Comey and asked for Session’s and Rosenstein’s views. While they criticized Comey, they did not raise concerns about replacing him. McGahn and Dhillon said the fact that neither Sessions nor Rosenstein outright objected to replacing Comey gave them peace of mind that the President’s decision to fire Comey was not an attempt to obstruct justice. An Oval Office meeting was scheduled later so that Sessions and Rosenstein could discuss the issue with the President.
5:00 p.m. Trump meets with Sessions and Rosenstein. Trump tells group he watched Comey’s May 3rd testimony again over the weekend and though that “something was ‘not right’ with Comey.” McGahn, Dhillon and Rosenstein describe Trump’s “concern” about Comey’s handing of the Clinton email investigation.
Trump distributes copies of his termination letter. McGahn and Dhillon urge Trump to allow Comey to resign but the President was adamant he be fired. They also suggested Rosenstein should draft a memorandum should draft a memo to Sessions saying Comey should be removed.
Trump agreed and the President told Rosenstein to include in his recommendation when he wrote his memo that Comey had refused to confirm that the President was not personally under investigation. “Put the Russia stuff in the memo,” to which Rosenstein responded, “the Russia investigation was not the basis of his recommendation to fire Comey,”; he didn’t think Russia should be mentioned. Trump responded, “I would appreciate it if you put it in your letter anyway.”
Rosenstein left the meeting to draft a memo. He told his staff his reasons for letting Comey go were not the same as the Presidents.
May 9, 2017 – Attorney Hunt delivers a letter from Sessions to Trump recommending Comey’s removal and a memorandum from Rosenstein, addressed to the Attorney General, entitled, “Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI.” Trump liked the DOJ letters and said they should provide the foundation for a new cover letter the President would write accepting the recommendation to terminate Comey. Notes taken by Annie Donaldson on May 9th documented the view of the White House Counsel’s office that the President’s and Stephen Miller’s original letter should “not see the light of day” and it would be better to offer no rationale for the firing other than what Rosenstein and Sessions had come up with.
Trump asks Stephen Miller to draft a new termination letter and told Miller to say in the letter that Comey had informed the President three times he was not under investigation.” McGahn, Priebus and Dhillon objected to including this language. Trump insisted. Dhillon made a final pitch to Trump asking that Comey be allowed to resign. Trump refused.
Priebus summoned Sean Spicer and the Press team to the office where they were told Comey had been fired for the reasons stated in the letters by Rosenstein and Sessions.
The evening of May 9 Andrew McCabe was summoned to the White House by Trump. He was told Comey had been fired because of the Clinton email investigation and for “many other reasons.”. Trump asked McCabe if he was aware Comey had told the President three times that he was not under investigation. Trump also asked McCabe whether many in the FBI disliked Comey and whether McCabe was part of the “resistance”. McCabe told Trump that most in the FBI felt positively about Comey and that he had worked closely with Comey on the Clinton investigation decisions.
Later in the evening of May 9th, Trump tells his communications team he was unhappy with the press coverage of Comey’s termination. Trump ordered them to go out and defend him. Trump also called Chris Christie and told him he was “getting killed” in the press coverage over Comey’s firing. Trump asked Christie, “what should I do?” Christie asked, “did you fire Comey because of what Rosenstein wrote in the memo?”. Trump said, “yes.” Christie said the president should have Rod Rosenstein go out and defend the idea right away.
After the phone call, the White House Press Office called the DOJ and said the White House wanted to put out a statement saying that it was Rosenstein’s idea to fire Comey. Rosenstein told the DOJ he would not participate in putting out a “false story.” Trump called Rosenstein directly and said he was watching Fox News, the coverage had been great, and he wanted Rosenstein to do a press conference.
Rosenstein said this was not a good idea because if the press asked him, he would “tell the truth” that Comey’s firing was not his idea. Attorney General Jeff Sessions also called the president to say Rosenstein was upset that his memo was being portrayed as the reason for Comey’s termination.
Late in the evening of Tuesday May 9th, an unplanned press conference was called where Spicer told reporters, “It was all Rosenstein. No one from the White House. It was a DOJ decision.”
May 10, 2017 – White House officials and spokespeople maintain the President’s decision to fire Comey was driven by the recommendations made by Rosenstein and Sessions. That evening Trump met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office. No one else was present at this meeting. We learned of it by pictures taken by the Russian Press corp. Trump told Kislyak and Lavrov he terminated Comey the previous day, telling Lavrov and Kislyak: “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off….I’m not under investigation.” Trump never denied making these comments.
The White House issued a statement: “By grandstanding and politicizing the investigation into Russia’s actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia. The investigation would have always continued and obviously the termination of Comey would not have ended it. Once again, the real story is that our national security has been undermined by the leaking of private and highly classified information.”
The White House was fuming. When Hope Hicks (Communications Director) told Trump about the negative reactions to his meeting with Lavrov and he was not concerned saying of Comey, “he is crazy.” McGahn asked Trump about his comments to Lavrov. Trump responded it was good that Comey was fired because that took the pressure off him by making it clear he was not under investigation so he could get more work done.
That same morning of May 10th Trump called McCabe and asked he come over to the White House to discuss if he (Trump) should come to the FBI headquarters and speak about the events saying he had received “hundreds” of messages from FBI employees indicating their support for firing Comey. When McCabe arrived to meet Trump, without prompting Trump said, “people in the FBI love the President, it’s estimated that at least 80% of the FBI had voted for him.” He asked McCabe who he had voted for in the 2016 presidential elections. Trump also told McCabe that Comey should not have been permitted to travel back to Washington D.C. on an FBI airplane after he heard the news he had been fired (Comey had been attending a function in California when he heard the news.)
May 10th – afternoon: Sarah Sanders (Deputy press secretary) spoke to Trump about his decision to fire Comey. She then held a press conference telling reporters that the President, the Department of Justice and bipartisan members of Congress had lost confidence in Comey, “and most importantly, the rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director. The President has accepted the recommendation of his Deputy Attorney General (Rosenstein) to remove Comey from office.” She said that Rosenstein decided “on his own” to review Comey’s performance and decided “on his own” to come to the President on Monday May 8th and express his concerns about Comey. When a reporter countered her statement with “the vast majority of FBI agents supported Comey?” Sanders said, “Look, we’ve heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things.” Sanders would later comment that she made that comment, “in the heat of the moment” and it wasn’t founded on anything.
After that press conference. Attorney General Sessions and his deputy Rosenstein each spoke to White House attorney McGahn concerned that the White House was creating the false narrative of Rosenstein having initiated the decision to fire Comey. McGahn agreed that it was factually wrong to say the DOJ had initiated Comey’s termination and he asked attorneys in the White House Counsel’s office to have the Press Office correct the narrative.
May 11, 2017 - Trump interviewed by Lester Holt on TV. Trump told McGahn before the interview that because the communications team couldn’t get the story right, he was going to say what really happened. During the interview, Trump stated that he had made the decision to fire Comey BEFORE the President met with Rosenstein and Sessions. Trump told Holt, “I was going to fire (Comey) regardless of recommendations…Rosenstein made the recommendation. But regardless of that recommendation I was going to fire Comey knowing there was no good time to do it.” Trump continued: “In fact, when I decided to just ‘do it,’ I said to myself, I said, ‘you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.’ It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.”
When Holt asked if Trump was angry with Comey about the Russia investigation, Trump said, “as far as I’m concerned I want that thing to be absolutely done properly” and added he realized the termination of Comey “probably maybe will confuse people” and it might even “lengthen out the investigation.” But “he had to do the right thing for the American people” and “Comey was the wrong man for the position” describing Comey again as a “showboat” and “Grandstander” saying “the FBI is in turmoil” and he wanted “to have a really competent, capable director.” The President affirmed he expected the new FBI director to continue the Russia investigation.
That evening after the airing of the Lester Holt interview, Trump tweeted, “Russia must be laughing up their sleeves watching as the US tears itself apart over a Democrat EXCUSE for losing the election.” This same day the press reported about the one-on-one Trump/Comey meeting in which Trump had asked Comey for loyalty. Trump tweeted: “James Comey better hope that there are no “tapes” of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” and “When James Clapper himself and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt says there’s no collusion, when does it end?”
May 12, 2017 – Trump tweeted, “Again, the story that there was collusion between the Russians and Trump campaign was fabricated by Democrates as an excuse for losing the election.”
Summary - 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. Evidence indicates the catalyst for the President’s decision to fire Comey was Comey’s unwillingness to publicly state that the President was not personally under investigation despite the President’s repeated requests that Comey make such a statement. The termination letter the President and Stephen Miller prepared over the weekend in New Hampshire cited Comey’s handling of the Clinton e-mails. Bsut the facts surrounding Comey’s handling of the Clinton email inestigation were well known to the President at the time he assumred office and he had already made it clear to Comey and the senior staff in early 2017 that he wanted Comey to stay on as FBI director. Other evidence suggests he wanted to protecct himself from an investigation of the campaign and his asking Comey’s “loyalty” twice suggests this. The President said he wanted to be able to tell his Attorney General “who to investigate.”
The President had motive to put the FBI’s Russia invesstigation behind him. Evidence indicates 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. Though the President publicly stated during and after the election that he had no connection to Russia, the Trump Organization, through Michael Cohen, was pursuing the proposed Trump Tower Moscow project through June 2016 and candidate Trump was repeatedly brief on the progress of those efforts. The President and White house aides initially advanced a reason to the press and public for Comey’s termination. In the aftermath of the firing, the President dictated a press statement suggesting that he had acted based on the DOJ recommendation and White house press officials repeated that story. But the President had decided to fire Comey efore the White House solicited those recommendations. Although the President ultimately acknowledged he was going to fire Comey, he did so only after DOJ officials made clear to him that they woud resis the White House suggestion that they had prompted the process that led to Comey’s firing. Reliance on this justiciation supports an inference that the President was concerned about proiding the real reason for the firing, although the evidence does not resolve whether those concerns were personal, political or both.
(Monday: E.) Trump’s efforts to remove Special Prosecutor Mueller)