Fear: Trump in the White House

Dowd felt that Trump really couldn’t remember. As he asked more questions there was a lot that Trump said he couldn’t remember. He found this understandable, given the demands of the presidency.

So Dowd went back to December 2016, just after the election, and asked more about Flynn. “Well, was he making contact with diplomats, etcetera?”

“I assume he was.”

“Did he talk to Kislyak?”

“You know, I don’t know. I know there were a lot of conversations among the staff. I think I tweeted out some things.”

On March 31, Trump had tweeted, “Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!”

“What was your position on the sanctions Obama approved?” Dowd asked. Obama had expelled 35 Russian diplomats, sanctioned several individuals and entities, and closed two Russian compounds in January 2017.

“Well, my position was it gave me leverage.”

“Oh!” Dowd said. “Because everybody thinks you would be against them, because you wanted good relations with Putin.”

“No, I looked at them as leverage,” Trump repeated.

Based on the testimony that Dowd had reviewed, this was accurate. Dowd figured he was cruising pretty well. The six-page memo the White House and Dowd had compiled on Flynn had much more information than Trump was now recalling. Dowd had given the day-by-day account of how the White House discovered that Flynn had lied to Mueller and Quarles, who had complimented the memo for its thoroughness.

“Well,” Dowd asked, “why did you tell Director Comey that—you kind of asked him to take it easy on Flynn. What was that all about?”

“I never said,” Trump said.

“He made a contemporaneous memorandum of it,” Dowd said. “Reported it to his buddies.”

“I didn’t say that,” Trump replied. “John, I absolutely didn’t say that.”

“Well, he says . . .”

“He’s a liar,” Trump said. He went full tilt on Comey. “The guy’s a crook, he’s a liar. He bounces between the Clinton [email] thing and making memos and leaking.”

The president had his critique down pat. He delivered it all, unleashed, nonstop. Dowd tried to interject. No way. Trump went the whole nine yards.

“Look,” Dowd said after the storm had briefly subsided, “you can’t answer a question that way. That is what they say is off-putting. It’s not good. Okay? Be polite about it.”

“Well, goddamn it!”

“Did he tell you that you weren’t under investigation” on January 6?

“Yes he did.”

“He just meant on the salacious part, not collusion, right?” Dowd asked. That was one theory in Mueller’s team.

“That’s bullshit! He never said that to me.”

Dowd believed him since Comey had corroborated that there had been no investigation on anything at that point.

The next 30 minutes were useless. “This thing’s a goddamn hoax!” Trump reprised everything he had tweeted or said before. Dowd could get nowhere. Trump was raging. Dowd worried that if he had been Mueller that Trump probably would have fired him on the spot. It was almost as if Trump were asking, Why am I sitting here answering questions? “I am the president of the United States!”

What a mess. Dowd shrugged his shoulders at the waste of time, but he saw the full nightmare. It was quite a sight seeing the president of the United States fuming like some aggrieved Shakespearean king.

Trump finally came down from the ceiling and began to regain his composure.

“Mr. President, that’s why you can’t testify,” Dowd said. “I know you believe it. I know you think it. I know you experienced it. But when you’re answering questions. When you’re a fact witness, you try to provide facts. If you don’t know the facts, I’d just prefer you to say, Bob, I just don’t remember. I got too much going on here. Instead of sort of guessing and making all kinds of wild conclusions.”

Then Dowd handed Trump the draft of the letter addressed to Mueller. The subject read “Request for Testimony on Alleged Obstruction of Justice.”

A raw assertion of presidential power was printed in boldface: “He could, if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired.”

Trump read the 22-page letter carefully, pausing to read several paragraphs out loud. He said he loved the letter. “You know, I’ve got a hell of a case here. I love the way it’s organized.” He admired the 59 footnotes.

“This is just one of the best days I’ve ever had in this thing,” he went on. His capacity to cycle between emotions, from low to high, was on full display. “It really is beautiful. I guess it’s everything I ever thought of and better. Now I get it. I see what you’re doing.”

Yeah, Dowd said.

“Let’s push them to the wall. But you don’t want me to testify?”