Fear: Trump in the White House

The material in the dossier is the sort of stuff that a reporter or the FBI might more than reasonably follow up on, try to track down its origins, even locate some of the sources and see if any confirmation can be found. Clearly, the FBI had an obligation to make this effort—as they later would.

But including it, even in scaled-down form, in one of the most important briefings the intelligence chiefs might ever present to a president-elect made little sense to me. It would be as if I had reported and written one of the most serious, complex stories for The Washington Post that I had ever done—and then provided an appendix of unverified allegations. Oh, by the way, here is a to-do list for further reporting and we’re publishing it.

In A Higher Loyalty, published a year later, Comey writes at length about his misgivings about how he was going to handle the dossier before he met with Trump.

“I was staying on as FBI director,” he wrote. “We knew the information, and the man had to be told. It made complete sense for me to do it. The plan was sensible, if the word applies in the context of talking with a new president about prostitutes in Moscow.”

Perhaps it may turn out to all be true, but imagine being told that by the FBI director.

As Comey continued, “Still, the plan left me deeply uncomfortable. . . . There was a real chance that Donald Trump, politician and hardball deal-maker, would assume I was dangling the prostitute thing over him to jam him, to gain leverage. He might well assume I was pulling a J. Edgar Hoover, because that’s what Hoover would do in my shoes. An eyebrow raise didn’t quite do this situation justice; it was really going to suck.”

On January 15, five days before the inauguration, I appeared on Fox News Sunday. I said, “I’ve lived in this world for 45 years where you get things and people make allegations. That is a garbage document. It never should have been presented as part of an intelligence briefing. Trump’s right to be upset about that.” The intelligence officials, “who are terrific and have done great work, made a mistake here, and when people make mistakes they should apologize.” I said the normal route for such information, as in past administrations, was passing it to the incoming White House counsel. Let the new president’s lawyer handle the hot potato.

Later that afternoon Trump tweeted: “Thank you to Bob Woodward who said, ‘That is a garbage document . . . it never should have been presented . . . Trump’s right to be upset (angry) . . .”

I was not delighted to appear to have taken sides, but I felt strongly that such a document, even in an abbreviated form, really was “garbage” and should have been handled differently.

The episode played a big role in launching Trump’s war with the intelligence world, especially the FBI and Comey.

CHAPTER

9

Five days after taking the oath of office, January 25, President Trump invited his top advisers and his national security team to the White House for dinner. Mattis, the new secretary of defense, presented Trump with plans for a SEAL Team Six operation against a senior al Qaeda collaborator in Yemen.

He described how several dozen commandos would attack, hoping to capture intelligence, cell phones and laptop computers, and kill the collaborator, one of the few al Qaeda leaders still alive.

It would be the first operation in Yemen in two years. It had been considered and delayed by President Obama. The military wanted a moonless night for the attacks, and one was coming up.

Bannon had questions about the larger problems in Yemen. The former Navy lieutenant commander wondered why the arms to the rebel Houthis could not be cut off and stopped by sea. Iran was their only ally.

“You control the air,” Bannon said. “You’ve got the U.S. Navy, and you control the sea. How tough is it?”

“It’s a big coastline,” Mattis replied.

“Steve,” Trump said impatiently, “these guys, this is what they do. Let them do it.” In other words, shut up.

Trump signed the order the next day and the raid was carried out before dawn on Sunday, January 29. A lot went wrong. During a 50-minute firefight one SEAL was killed, three wounded. Civilians, including children, were killed. A $75 million Marine MV-22 Osprey made a hard landing, disabling the plane. It had to be destroyed to keep it from falling into the hands of the enemy.

Chief Special Warfare Operator William “Ryan” Owens, 36, from Peoria, Illinois, was the first combat casualty in Trump’s presidency. Trump decided to go to Dover, Delaware, to observe the ceremony for the arrival of his body. Ivanka accompanied him.