The FRONTLINE Interviews
Robert Ray
Former Independent Counsel
Robert Ray is a former federal prosecutor who led the Office of the Independent Counsel from 1999-2002, during which time he investigated and issued a report on the Whitewater scandal, among others.
This is the transcript of an interview with FRONTLINE’s Michael Kirk conducted on June 13, 2018. It has been edited for clarity and length.
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Let's just start with a sense from you of the legal landscape that Donald Trump—the developer, builder, reality TV star, lived in New York—what he used lawyers for, how the system worked here for a guy like Donald Trump.
I think like most people, including most wealthy people, litigation is a part of what you do as far as just a cost of doing business, so I imagine he became actually fairly familiar, more than most people without means become familiar with the litigation process.You hire lawyers; you have many of them on staff or on retainer to do a multitude of different things.Litigation is one of the costs of doing business in the real estate world, as well as anything else involving, at least in my experience as a defense lawyer, involving wealthy clients.
He was involved in 4,500 cases while he was here.Seem like a lot?
For a billionaire?I don't know, but I would imagine probably not.I mean, his reputation had been as a fairly litigious person.To the extent that he brought some things on, or brought them on himself, I suppose maybe more than what otherwise [might] have been the case, but generally speaking, no, it’s not that unusual that there would be a fairly large number of cases involving a billionaire developer in New York City.That would not be unusual.
He said he always wanted to be the plaintiff.He wanted to be the first in there, and he’d say to his lawyers, “Let’s go now."
Well, that's not a bad legal strategy.Even in terms of the sort of stuff that I have done in my life, whether you put into the category of civil or criminal litigation, generally speaking it is, with experience, not a bad idea to be first and to be aggressive.It tends to be the person who is first—my parents used to say the “firstest with the mostest."You know, you get in there; you get in early; you dictate the agenda.That tends to be a good legal strategy, as opposed to being the one who’s always on the receiving end.And billionaires, wealthy people, tend to be defendants in an awful lot of things for obvious reasons.I think he’s probably right.I think based upon years of experience, he probably learned the hard way that it was, frankly, more beneficial to take the first shot across the bow and that the results tended to be better when you did that.
How does it work in New York?We hear about zoning and deals have to be cut and you're wrestling with labor unions.It’s that kind of law.How does that work?Is it actually courtrooms and all of that, or is it threats back and forth, threats to sue?
Well, I would start with geography.It's a very tiny island with a whole lot of people on it, and zoning is everything.I mean, zoning dictates what is possible to build and what isn't.And zoning, necessarily, is a political process, so already you're starting to talk about constituencies, who are the decision makers, the political process, law, political power, pull, labor unions, other constituencies.I mean, that's New York City politics.
And to succeed, what do you need?
Moxie.Aggressive.He had a fairly well-developed reputation for being litigious that tended to, I guess, in some quarters strike fear in others.But it was a legitimate—frankly, at least with my limited understanding and window in terms of understanding what exactly was going on, it’s not a bad strategy.
A lot of his early schooling, early tutelage came from Roy Cohn, who’s famously said, “F--- the law; who’s the judge,” right?That's what I need to know.
Right.Well, that's not my view of the law.Facts ultimately do matter.It’s not to say judges don’t matter—they do—but I think that's in some ways overstated.I frankly think Donald Trump's lessons more were developed as a result of his father’s experience than anything else.Now, were there lawyers along the way and lessons learned in terms of litigation and whatnot?I'm sure there were.But it’s not like he was a newcomer to this.It’s a family business, and he had a family’s worth of experience before he ever made his own decisions about how to navigate the legal landscape in New York City.Maybe perhaps at a different scale and a different time, and it was in Brooklyn first with his father, and Donald Trump's experience was largely in Manhattan, but there weren’t lessons that were learned—I'm sure they were learned and at a very early age, too.
There's a lot of talk about the power of his ability to wield another forceful weapon, the tabloids, the Page Six, the celebrity side of Mr. Trump, when he was here.How important do you figure it was to who Donald Trump was?
I think it was a big part of it.Public sentiment is an asset of the exercise of political power.And also, I think he recognized that it was ultimately one in which he developed a brand, that the value of the Trump name itself—forget about the building itself, meaning the bricks and the mortar and the ground and all the rest; that's one thing.But he ultimately got to a point where it wasn't even about building the building at all.He sold the name.Somebody else built the building, and the name has its own intrinsic value, and that was something that he spent a number of years—I can remember from when I first came to New York City after law school in the mid-1980s, you heard about Donald Trump all the time.Everybody knew who he was, and the Trump name had value.That's why it’s on the buildings.
The reputation?What was the reputation?
Well, I think everybody in New York City understands what a difficult business the real estate business is in New York City, with a mixture of all different constituencies involved, from labor to organized crime to the cement business to blue-collar workers to politicians, decision makers in the city, zoning requirements.I mean, it’s everything that you can imagine about New York City and more.I think that's what people’s impressions were.
He could get it done?
Sure.I mean, the best example of which—he always touts it, and people, I guess, can question about how significant it was, but Donald Trump was the guy that got the skating rink done in Central Park.Donald Trump gets it done.That was his reputation.When [former New York City Mayor] Ed Koch needs something done in the city and nobody else can do it, turn to Donald Trump, and he’ll get it built.
But not a political office seeker in those days.Really, a guy who was making money, losing money.
I don't think he had a particularly high opinion of politicians.Politicians were, again, just a means of doing business.Not that he has any particularly high regard for lawyers, either.I mean, again, they're a necessary evil in some sense in order to get done what he wanted to try to get done, which was build buildings and make money.
Somebody said he had an addiction to lawyers.Some people have addictions to women or booze or gambling; he had an addiction to lawyers.
Well, I don't know about that.I think he probably had an addiction to having good lawyers, and he could afford them.I think he found, with some degree of savvy, that sometimes the most supposed sophisticated lawyers in the biggest, most prestigious white-collar firms were not necessarily what he needed.He needed street fighters.That's what he was looking for.And again, that comes from somebody who has some savvy business sense.Yeah, you need a trial lawyer, but trial lawyers are not necessarily warehoused in white-shoe law firms on Wall Street.Sometimes they might be in little crampy offices someplace, but they know how to present a case to a jury.That's what he was looking for.He was looking for a street fighter.
I know a guy who meets those circumstances.His name is Michael Cohen.
Sure.Look, there's upside and downside to that.But it’s not like his instincts were wrong.His instincts were in the direction of finding people who knew how to appeal and knew how to be aggressive and knew a little bit about street smarts.
OK. He gets elected president of the United States.You've lived in both worlds.You've been in the Washington world a bit, and you've been a prosecutor; you've been an attorney here.What does Donald Trump not, when he goes down there, not know about the Washington legal ethos?
I'm not sure I know exactly what that means other than I have had my own experience about New York lawyers.For example, this is not entirely analogous, but the Washington, D.C., legal market, for example, particularly the legal market as it relates to interactions with the government, is a very different place than New York.And a lot of people—the battlefield is littered with numerous people who have come out of New York and gone down to Washington to think that things are going to work down there just like they do in New York, and then they find out, much to their dismay, that's not how it is.So I'll say that much for it.It’s a very different place.
How?In what way?
Well, politics is—New York’s about business.I can remember as a young prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, no one ever thought that federal judges and their decisions were all that much affected by day-to-day politics.In Washington, D.C., it’s a completely different thing.Everything is very much about politics.It’s just a different world, and it's a different focus, and the skills necessary to be successful in New York don’t necessarily transfer over into being successful in Washington.That's not to say it’s impossible; I'm just saying all things being equal, you're operating in a different environment, and some people can make that transition.Most can't.
Compare and contrast: New York skills, Washington skills.
You definitely come to have an awareness that all of your decisions in Washington are governed through a political lens.Things are much more affected by what public sentiment views the merits of what it is you're doing.You become much more self-aware, I think, in Washington.And if you don’t, you do so at your peril.
New York is a place where, again, by virtue of geography, so many times you can operate in an environment where very few people have any idea what it is you're doing, and I think obviously with regard to going back to Donald Trump before he became president, much of what he was able to do behind the scenes doesn't end up in the newspapers.Anything you do in Washington that has the last whiff of public interest is obviously something that's followed very closely.So it’s just a different environment.
There's a fundamental moment in our film that I'd value your insight into in terms of just describing what you've been talking about.The intelligence community representatives—[John] Brennan from the CIA; [Michael] Rogers from NSA [National Security Agency]; [James] Clapper, DNI [Director of National Intelligence]; and Jim Comey [from FBI]—come to Trump Tower on Jan. 6.The president-elect is there.They're going to tell him about the Russia probe, and then Comey is alone going to talk to him about the dossier, the famous Steele dossier.Comey, a representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, former alum of the Southern District of New York, a prosecutor—
I know him well.We were colleagues together.We were there at the same time.
OK. Comey’s view of Trump in that moment, as he walks into that room to talk to him.I'm not talking about what is in his head; I'm talking about what is his view as the composite of who he is and who you are at a moment like that with a brand-new president like Donald Trump.
Well, I can't get into Jim Comey’s head except to say a couple of very basic and obvious things.First off, the FBI director isn't elected to anything.He’s an appointee of a president.I think a lot of times in Washington, people forget that.There's power, and then there's real power.Real power is the president and the vice president are the only two people in our constitutional structure that are elected by all of the people.So in terms of big potatoes and little potatoes, Donald Trump as the president-elect is a big potato; FBI directors come and go, and FBI directors serve at the pleasure of the president.
Now, having said that, one of the unique features of the office of being the FBI director is an understanding based upon our history about how powerful that person can be in the government given the investigative powers that the FBI wields.For that reason, Congress with, I think, some wisdom, decided to structure the directorship as one that would carry a 10-year term which would necessarily extend beyond the life of the president, the president’s administration that appointed him.
So you're already talking about an appointee of a president who serves at the pleasure of the president and can be terminated, but it was intended by Congress that that FBI director would extend over at least two administrations.And that's unusual, right?There aren’t too many other officials in government where that's the case, Federal Reserve being another one.
But it’s a reflection of the fact of the unique importance of an FBI director.I don't know what Jim Comey’s thoughts were, but obviously his intention was that he would be serving into the next administration, because that's what's intended by his appointment in the first place.
So when he stands there and towers over even a big guy like Donald Trump, with the dossier contents, especially the “salacious and unverified” contents, in his book he tells us he’s trying to warn the incoming president about his vulnerability.Donald Trump, the man we've discussed coming from here who has a view of lawyers and life and deal making, has said he thinks it’s a shakedown.
Well, he might be—just think about it in human terms.You'd be cautious if you were the new president about that, wouldn't you?Somebody comes to you with information: “I need to tell you this."I'm sure it was a similar feeling about how J. Edgar Hoover went to Robert Kennedy about, “This is what I know about your brother."On the one hand, you might receive that as a, “Oh, that's a nice head’s-up."On the other hand, you might also receive it implicitly, I'm sure as it was intended, as a threat.
I don't know that Jim Comey ever really—I mean, so far as I can tell from having a brief understanding of what he’s disclosed now in his book, but I don't think he necessarily went to that meeting thinking, oh, my job is on the line.If he didn't, he should have, because while it was, I'm sure, his intention [to remain]—that when he went to Trump Tower [there was] a fixed view that Congress has intended that he survive into the next administration—the fact remains that he does still, even under the statute in order for it to be constitutional, the Congress can't preclude the president’s executive function from deciding who serves as his pleasure.If the president wants to remove the FBI director, he can do so.
It comes at some obviously political consequence, but the president is unimpaired in his ability to—even for any reason at all, including that he doesn't feel that he’s dealing with an FBI director who’s prepared to be loyal to him, if he doesn't want to have that FBI director, he gets rid of him, fires him, which is, in fact, what he did.And to the extent that Jim Comey didn't foresee that, at least in my view, that's incredibly naïve.One of the examples of somebody coming outside of the Washington, D.C. experience not fully understanding what life in Washington’s like.
Now, he’d been there long enough that he presumably should have known better.But to the extent that he didn't see that, that's a blind side.I mean, I can't imagine why he wouldn’t have seen it.The bottom line is you're having an encounter with the person who’s the new president-elect?Of course your job is on the line.And if you don’t think so, you're drinking some other kind of Kool-Aid.
A number of things happen in short order in about two weeks, all of them springing from this moment.On Jan. 22, two days after the “carnage in America” inaugural address by Donald Trump, he has over to the Blue Room all of the heads of law enforcement that worked on the inauguration, and one of them is Comey, Comey, who says he's hiding in his book, says he’s hiding in the drapes, hoping Trump won't make anything about him.… What do you see that moment as?
… I have no idea what the president’s intentions were.I do know two days after the inauguration, not necessarily coincidentally, Michael Flynn sits for an interview with the FBI in the White House, so stuff’s happening.He sits for an interview in the White House without a lawyer present—also incomprehensible to me.I guess even beyond that, what's the FBI doing at the White House?I don't know how that gets past the chief of staff.The whole thing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
After the first moment, after the Steele moment, Comey goes down to his car and starts to type contemporaneous notes.After this moment, he goes back to his office, starts to fill in the history of his interactions with Donald Trump.What's up with that?
Well, the Jim Comey I know is thorough.He’s also a very skilled and bright lawyer, and he knows the value later on for investigative and other purposes of keeping a contemporaneous record.So he obviously felt uncomfortable enough based upon instinct to think that there was merit to generating a contemporaneous record, the same way people do things like keep diaries.For a lawyer, there's obviously value in the benefit of an immediate recollection of what has occurred.And obviously with the passage of time, and then also when your motivations are later on called into question, he certainly knows the benefit of having spent an enormous amount of time in prosecution.He was the former deputy attorney general, he was the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.He was acting as a lawyer, as a lawyer and as a prosecutor would, which is to say, keep a record.
[What] in substance made him feel hinky about—?
Yeah.Now, he may be right about that, or he may be completely off in his own world.I have no way of being able to judge that, but I don’t question his motivations.I mean, his motivation seems to have been that he was concerned enough about what was happening that he intended to keep a record.Now, it also happens to be the president of the United States, which in and of itself might warrant keeping a record of whatever it’s worth.It’s new and the beginning of another administration, and if things had turned out a different way, I imagine he probably would have, in subsequent meetings with the president, been less likely to continue to keep a contemporaneous record.
But for whatever reason, both by virtue of the fact that he felt uncomfortable for whatever reason, and the fact that it involved the president, he decided to keep a contemporaneous record.
He has sent those FBI agents to the White House.He has sat with Sally Yates, the acting attorney general, and Mary McCord, [the acting assistant attorney general], said they’ve got to go up there.…What's the situation here?What's at play here?What's going on?
The biggest thing that's in play, which I don't think has been given sufficient attention, is that there's always—and I've seen it every time there's a change in administration where there's a change in party—there's an enormous amount of distrust between the people who were there before and the people that are coming in, on both sides.
Some of that you can just understand as being human, right?But when it involves law enforcement, it really complicates things, because people’s motivations are called into question, fairly or unfairly.But it makes it very difficult to make rational, intelligent decisions when one side is questioning the motives, “Why is this being done?"and ditto with regard to the other side.So there's a sorting-out process, and particularly early on, too, when you're trying to figure out, OK, if you're the White House counsel, you're thinking, why is this person coming to me, and what do they want me to do?And you're inside the Justice Department, this person’s professing to act in a nonpartisan way about the merits of something and can't understand why the White House is offering resistance.
It doesn't mean that one side or the other is right or wrong.I'm just telling you from experience, that's what happens.
I watched this happen with me at the end of the Clinton investigation and the end of the Clinton presidency with the new administration, the George W. Bush administration coming in, and my efforts to try to give them a head’s-up about what was happening in the transition, and the head of the transition team, it turned out to be the vice president, it was [Dick] Cheney.Just trying to get a message through to Cheney's office, and even their reaction was, “Well, why does Bob Ray want to talk to the vice president?"I was trying to alert them to the fact that there was going to be a resolution involving Bill Clinton and didn't want them to find out about it in the press.
I notified the attorney general.I did all the notifications.I notified the chairman and the ranking member of the oversight committees, and I thought it was important to have a direct communication with the transition to let them know that this was going to happen on the president’s last full day in office before the inauguration which would have led to, and which did lead to, President George W. Bush's inauguration.It was just very difficult to even do something basic, like get a communication into the incoming administration.Why?Because they didn't trust what my motivations were, and I couldn't understand why they didn't want to receive this.The reaction I got back was: “Why do you want to talk to him?Is it a matter of national security?"“No, it’s not a matter of national security, but it’s important, so call me back."It was that kind of thing.
It gets even to the point of being petty and ridiculous.But it all stems from there's a sorting-out process, and there's an “us against them,” and people’s motivations are questioned, and it’s difficult to sort out are we just talking about politics here?Are we talking about the merits?And what angle do you have, and what are you trying to do to hurt me?
All that goes in.And again, none of that sort of stuff happens when you're in New York.Just telling you, OK? It’s a different world.In Washington, that kind of stuff happens all the time.
It's a different world in the sense that it’s out in the open; it’s out front?
Yeah.And in a legal community, there's a certain amount of trust and respect earned between adversaries.In Washington, when you're adversaries and it involves politics, and it doesn't matter—there's very few instances where trust is enough to carry you through.You've got your eyes in the back of your head kind of wondering, well, what are they up to?What are they trying to do, and why are they doing this, and what—they say one thing, but what do they really mean?And I'm just telling you, between Sally Yates and the White House counsel, that's what was going on in that moment.And it’s completely understandable.There's a lot riding on it, you know.You really want to understand before you make a decision, am I sure I've got it, and do I understand what's motivating what's being done?
You seem surprised that the FBI agents came to the White House to interview [then-National Security Adviser] Mike Flynn.Were you surprised?
I was.
Why?
How did they get past the White House—I wouldn't have—if I'd been the White House counsel, I wouldn't have let them through the door.
Why?
Because what business do they have in the White House?I wouldn't have let them in.You know, you want to make arrangements to talk to Mike Flynn or anybody else, then you can talk to the counsel’s office, and we’ll make arrangements.I don’t understand how they got in the building.
Fascinating.
And just in terms of a lawyer, I'm thinking to myself, how is it that Michael Flynn is meeting with FBI agents without a lawyer present?What, is he out of his mind?Like, that should never happen.And the White House counsel, frankly, should not have let that happen.Not that the White House counsel represents Michael Flynn in Michael Flynn’s individual capacity, but if you're paying attention, that sort of thing’s not supposed to happen.
Speaking of things that maybe shouldn’t have happened, that night, the night that Sally [Yates] has been up there in the morning, Friday the 27th, which happens to be the day that the travel ban is being rolled out, the executive order—
Which by the way may be collateral, but is part and parcel of, again, if you're on the receiving end and you're in the White House, you're questioning motivations.and you're probably right to question then.You're wondering, OK, what else is going on?That's the undertone of all of this.
What do you mean?From whom to whom?
You know, either way.If you're Don McGahn you're thinking to yourself, OK, Sally Yates has already come to me about this whole thing about you’ve got this little problem, national security problem, because you have somebody who is compromised.OK, why do you care?You're on your way out.We're the new administration on their way in.Then the next shoe that drops is she decides to take the stand that she takes with regard to the travel ban.And again, I'm not questioning her motives.Maybe she really felt that on the merits, this is what she needed to do.
On the other hand, it was clear that that was not going to be well-received by the administration, and when it was received, what the likely reaction would have been.If she didn't see that, she's politically naïve.And then to do all that in the context in which she's providing advice to the White House counsel about what the White House should be doing relative to its selections within the administration and for the Cabinet, again, all that gets into politics, questioning motives.The Justice Department, I'm sure, felt it was trying to provide the best advice it could on the merits in a nonpartisan way, and it couldn’t have helped but have been received in partisan fashion if you're on the receiving end.
So again, it's the same conversation.One side thinks, I'm providing neutral and detached advice, and the other side is like through the lens of politics going, what the heck’s going on here, right?
You've really helped me understand something.I've done 40 interviews about this film, and the sense that politics is on top of everything in Washington, in the Washington equation, is central, I think, to understanding the difference between even not just rule of law, differences in shadings, but the difference between the way people [attend] events and come away with completely different points of view.
And I'll give you one example.That night, Trump has Comey over for dinner, dinner for two.Just the two of them, nobody else around.No chief of staff, no anybody.And he asks Comey for loyalty.Comey hears one thing; Comey writes one thing when he leaves.Trump seems a little astonished that it doesn't go particularly well.Help me understand that against the lens that you’ve provided us of politics at this moment.
Well, you know, politics also gets around to sort of government.Jim Comey’s responsibility as the FBI director is significant.But nevertheless, small slice of the pie.The president is the president with regard to a whole lot of matters beyond just simply what falls within the Justice Department of the FBI.And yes, I understand, wow, in the current environment it’s like being on one side of the Titanic.Everybody’s rushing over to look at the iceberg, and the iceberg is, through the lens of law enforcement, the firing of the FBI director, the president’s efforts to try to control the Mike Flynn investigation; the president’s view about this, any president, not just Donald Trump, is this is just one small piece of what I have to be worried about.And to the extent that the investigation represents a threat to the viability of the presidency, there's a whole host of things to be thought about here beyond simply the “integrity” of the ongoing Russia investigation.
That accounts, I think in not little measure, how two people in the same room alone at the same dinner might come away with very different views about what the other person’s up to.
What do you think Trump meant by loyalty?Especially coming from New York, where you've just talked about trust and everything between attorneys and partisans.
I mean, it's very popular right now to turn loyalty immediately into something pernicious and awful and terrible and tantamount to obstruction of justice.I kind of smile when, maybe smirk a little, at that one.I mean, every president expects loyalty.If I had to give a president a piece of advice, and I'm not the first one to say it, the most important position you pick, probably, in the Cabinet is your attorney general.Why?Because that's the person that potentially can do the most damage to the administration.And for that reason—and this lesson was not lost on Ronald Reagan—you want to pick the person who is the closest, most loyal person that you can imagine, whose loyalty is unquestioned to you.Nothing wrong with that.You don’t think that President Kennedy had the same thoughts about choosing his—I mean, now, for nepotism reasons, that wouldn’t be possible, but the same factored in in terms of John Kennedy choosing his brother as the attorney general.That lesson wasn’t lost on Ronald Reagan, and any president who didn't give sufficient attention to that, frankly, I think that's a mistake.
So why did Comey’s teeth itch, hair stand on end when Trump asked him about loyalty?This is a big section in his book.What's up?
Well, because Jim Comey is, by his own acknowledgment, has a very black-and-white view of the world with very little room for gray.Is that a fault?I guess the sense, to be critical of Jim Comey, … it offends his sense of propriety.I personally would not have been so easily offended.But, you know, different strokes for different folks.
Things move apace.The Washington—
I guess to give you the response would be if the president made a sort of glancing reference to me about “I hope you can see your way to going easy on Mike Flynn,” my answer would be, “Thanks very much, Mr. President, but we're going to do the right thing here,” and it wouldn’t have troubled me.I would have expected the president to have expressed feelings and also just the substance of “I want to protect my own people in my administration."My response to the president was: “Mr. President, you need to understand that I have a job to do, and we're going to do it, and we're going to take the facts wherever they lead.And I appreciate the sentiment, but my job is to follow the law, which is what I intend to do."I wouldn't have felt any qualms about making sure the president understood where I stood with regard to that.
That statement.
And also to remind the president that that's what you should expect me to do.
That statement, by the way, comes—it’s the third fencepost along the obstruction of justice case that's being built.The first is the moment with the handshake across the room where he’s supposedly hiding in the curtains.
Well, apparently in today’s world, anything—
Is an obstruction?
Is an obstruction of justice.Which, by the way, is a ridiculous notion.I mean, this whole thing, at least on that portion of it, the president doesn’t have to have a reason to fire the FBI director, and the president as the head of the executive branch is more than permissible to inquire of the FBI director about the course of an investigation, which is all that he did.Anybody who wants to turn that into obstruction of justice and a crime, you can argue about whether or not you think that's proper conduct.You could even see your way to deciding, if you want to, that you could consider or construe that as being the offense, an obstruction offense, that would support an article of impeachment.
But to actually believe that that would constitute the crime of obstruction of justice, frankly, I think ignores the fact that it's the president of the United States.That doesn’t mean that he’s above the law, but he’s a special figure in our constitutional constellation, and trying to equate that with obstruction of justice is the same basic argument that you would have if you tried to turn the fact that Richard Nixon fired Archibald Cox into an obstruction of justice offense as a crime.You can consider that to be grounds for impeachment, but nobody ever considered that Richard Nixon obstructed justice when he attempted to, and did fire, the special prosecutor.He was entirely permitted to fire the special prosecutor.No different with regard to the FBI director.If Donald Trump wants to fire Jim Comey in order to derail or curtail the Russia investigation, he’s absolutely permitted to do that, and anybody who thinks that that's the crime of obstruction of justice is dreaming.
So here's the moments: handshake; loyalty dinner; after Flynn is fired, he has the moment in the Oval Office alone with—he says to Sessions, “Get out of the room."He says to Kushner: “Get out of the room.I'm alone with you, Jim."And he says: “This guy’s a good guy.Go easy on him."Comey takes great umbrage with this.Goes back to Sessions at the Justice Department and says, “Don’t ever leave me alone with the president again."What do you make of Comey’s insistence that the attorney general intercede and never leave him alone with the president again?
I don't know how that makes any sense or would ever be.Just for national security alone, I would hope that the president has private conversations with the FBI directors.I'm not sure I understand what Jim Comey was thinking.I just think that that's unrealistic to expect that the FBI director would never be left alone with the president of the United States again.That doesn't make any sense.And as far as this is concerned, yes, there is a process in terms of when the conversation is specific to the question about a pending investigation.Of course there are internal procedures within the Department of Justice where it is now required that that conversation happen between the deputy attorney general of the United States and the White House.If the president or the president’s people or the White House counsel wants to inquire about a pending investigation, there's a procedure in place in order to do that.
I suspect that that's what motivated Jim Comey being uncomfortable about that conversation.But again, I would think that it would have been a better result if Jim Comey had felt less umbrage and just made it clear what his position was in response to what he perceived to be what the president was asking him.
It's like he's awfully touchy through all of this.And it comes through in the book—straight arrow, no deviation, here I go.You've already said it, but that's clearly what that moment felt like to me.
And some people just don’t hit it off.I mean, I would have been very cordial and friendly but also firm.In some sense, I got the sense that Jim Comey felt intimidated, didn't quite know what to do with what was happening and felt very uncomfortable as a result.
You also could stand up and say: “I can't talk to you about this.See you later."
Right.“If I think I know where this is going, Mr. President, this is a conversation we cannot have.And I would encourage you, if you're concerned about that, to proceed through proper channels.I'd be happy to let you know how that works.And [if] you want to inquire further, I suggest you ask the White House counsel.But basically what it means is the White House’s communications with regard to a pending investigation go through the White House counsel to the deputy attorney general, and that's how it should be handled, and I would expect you would do that.It makes sense.And by the way, just so you know”—and I think Jim was of this sense—“Mr. President, that's done not only for our protection, but also for your protection as well."That's all I would have said.You know, it's like, enough.
Sessions is the attorney general.In Comey’s book, he says when he asked Sessions to never leave him alone, Sessions’ eyes are darting back and forth ominously, according to Comey, although I could imagine Sessions is thinking, what the hell do I have my hands around here?This is a squabble between the director of the FBI and the president of the United States.What am I supposed to do about this?
Although I suspect that Jeff Sessions would have much more of a practical view about that, having been a politician.Again, I kind of go back to in many ways appointed officials are out of their depths when they're dealing with political officials who are elected, elected public officials as opposed to appointed public officials.That's part of the awkwardness, I imagine, in this.Again, I would imagine that Jeff Sessions would not have been so easily offended.And of course he’s been offended, as history will now already show, by the president on more than one occasion.But I don't think he was offended by that.
Let’s talk about recusal to the extent that you understand the position Sessions was in.
Well, he was in a tough position compounded by the fact that it happened so early.I don't know all the ins and outs, so I'll speak carefully.I have no doubt that in good faith the ethics officials within the Justice Department were advising the attorney general to recuse.That doesn't necessarily mean you have to take that advice; it means you need to hear it.And if you're going to act contrary to it, that's a tough position to be in, because you're sort of left out in the open when that happens.
But I think it was unfortunate for the country that that happened so soon in the administration and a decision was made.Look, I think the president is right to be frustrated with the fact that as a result of all of this, what happened was the attorney general recused; the FBI director was fired.As a result of that, it then fell into the lap of the deputy attorney general to then have to make a decision about, OK, what are we going to do now?It almost accelerated toward that which Jim Comey had intended, which was, of course, the last thing that Donald Trump wanted, which was the appointment of a special prosecutor, which, frankly, is the last thing any president wants, whether it’s an independent counsel or special prosecutor.Anyone that you have little, if any, control over is a difficult position for an administration to be in.
… Anyway, I think it was a closer call.I know that, again, flavor of the month now, largely in response in opposition to Donald Trump has been, even among Republicans: “Oh, this is obviously and absolutely what the attorney general had to do.He had to recuse himself."I don't know that I agree with that.I don't know enough to know whether or not—if it had been me, what would I have done?It's sort of like everybody’s guidepost in this is like if you'd been in the same position, would you have recused yourself or would you have stuck it out?I think it’s a closer question than people give it credit for.
The president went nuts.
And understandably so.
The president went nuts.
And understandably so.And you know, his reaction, again, just speaking in human terms, is understandable.I mean, everybody understands.“If I had known that, I’d have never appointed you as attorney general,” right?You know, the president’s not a lawyer, and he understands it just in terms of the very basic way in which now this has been cast, which is, is he being loyal to me, or isn't he?It’s obviously a more complicated situation than that.And recusal is always difficult and complicated, which is why I say, anybody who suggests—and I know many Republicans, including [South Carolina Sen.] Lindsey Graham and others have said, “Absolutely no question, the attorney general had to recuse himself."And I suspect they may be saying that more for political reasons than any other.
I don’t find recusal decisions ever to be that clear cut.It’s a tough call, because you know what the consequences are.You step aside and out of something, that’s no little deal.
In fact, the consequences are [U.S. Deputy Attorney General] Rod Rosenstein.
Yes.
And who is he, and what happens with him?
I know him very well.He’s a fine public official.And this is a very tough task to be in this situation.… I encountered him; we worked in the [Kenneth] Starr investigation together.He is a career federal prosecutor.There aren’t many of those.He has served in both Democratic and Republican administrations as the U.S. attorney in the District of Maryland, and so enjoys a bipartisan reputation that is and was well earned.So he’s a professional—
And at this moment—
—with experience in main Justice in Washington, as well as in the field as a line prosecutor and the U.S. attorney through both Democratic and Republican administrations, a very rare thing.One of the few other people currently alive that would fall under the same category, ironically enough, would be Bob Mueller.
That’s interesting.
Of the same cloth.
Wow.
Two different people, but unusual in the system at that level, people who enjoy reputations on a bipartisan basis, both Democratic and Republican administrations.And frankly, up until recently, the third person that you could put in that category would be, guess who?Jim Comey.
You articulated very well the power in the role of an attorney general, the necessity of an attorney general in a new administration.Now he’s recused himself from this growing metastasizing event that’s occurring in Jim Comey’s offices for the president.Give me a sense of what Trump is experiencing as a new president of the United States, fresh to Washington, at this moment. …
He’s feeling the same thing that all presidents feel, just that they don’t typically feel it within the first few weeks of an administration.That is, “I don’t have as much power as I thought I had."That’s what he’s experiencing.You know, in other words, the presidency is a very powerful position, but it is not all-powerful.And you don’t have as much control over events as you think you do, or, as Lincoln said, “I profess to control events, but, in fact, events control me."And you know, that’s what it is.And that’s very different than being the head of your own company that you own.
It isn't very long before Jim Comey finds the spotlight at testimony in Congress.The president has been asking him: “Are you after me?Am I the subject of the thing?"And everybody is waiting to hear.It’s a big event in Washington.Jim Comey is at center stage, and he’s free to talk about it.A senator asks him, “Is the president a subject of this investigation?,” and he says, “I'm not free to answer that,” or whatever he says.
Well, that was the death knell, at least as we understand the president’s thinking.Once he heard and saw that, because apparently he was watching, at least in his mind, that was the end of Jim Comey.
Why?
Because of the fact that that was enormously politically damaging, and I think he felt like, privately, Comey had represented to him that he wasn’t, so when he started to hear kind of equivocation on that, it’s like: “OK, I can't trust this guy.As far as I'm concerned, I'm done with him."And I think that was the—And, by the way, not without reason.I mean, I assume if you had been president, you’d have felt the same way.
And by the time he’s at Bedminster, [N.J., at his Trump National Golf Club], with his son-in-law [Jared Kushner] and Steve Miller, and they're kind of writing furiously that weekend.… Help me understand these events.What's going on over that weekend?
I think with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that at least there was some effort to try to find a pretext or a just—maybe “pretext” is too strong of a word, but certainly a just—an independent justification to do what the president had already decided in his own mind he wanted to do.And if you're part of the executive branch, I guess your reaction is, “Am I going to fall into line to the extent that I am able?,” but I think even to also show that there's a limit to that, too.And certainly, as the thing unfolds, and Rod Rosenstein sees what's happening, and that his reasons are being used as the pretext to justify the president’s action, he was none too pleased once he saw that that was happening, which is why he then registered an objection to the White House through the White House’s counsel’s office.And I think in no uncertain terms, at least as I understand what I've read, “You guys need to fix this and change this, or I'm out of here.I'm leaving,” and by the way, a bell you ring only once, which apparently he rang, and rang early.But they got the message, and they couldn’t afford another firing or resignation at that point.You know, they had already the attorney general recused, the FBI director fired, and then the deputy attorney general is going to bail out of the administration.That would have been catastrophic.But, you know, credit to Rod Rosenstein, a message he communicated back is, “Don’t make me the fall guy for this.Otherwise I'm out of here."That’s what I understand the message was that he communicated to the White House.
It doesn’t take long for the president to change the story, the pretext, with [Sergey] Kislyak and [Sergey] Lavrov, the Russians, [ambassador and foreign minister, respectively], the next day in the White House.He basically says, “The guy was a nut job."
That’s politics, by the way.Again, then all the commentators would have jumped on the bandwagon of, “Oh, that’s obstruction again.Look what he’s doing."Baloney.That’s politics.
What do you mean?
He has the right to frame it and characterize it however he will, with regard to what his intentions were.And frankly, for the president, the intentions are a mixture of all kinds of different things: one part from the Justice Department about Comey’s conduct, even before Donald Trump was even a candidate, and one part about how Jim Comey handled the Hillary Clinton investigation; one part about the two of them obviously just didn’t get along.It’s a mixture of reasons.And the president has the absolute right in the political domain to come up with a whole set of reasons, complete or otherwise, about why he decided to do something.Again, the suggestion that that’s tantamount to obstruction of justice is ridiculous.
The impact is phenomenal, in terms of the Shakespearean drama we’re calling the first 18 months of Trump’s presidency, in this sense, the cascading events, over to Rosenstein, sitting there, making that decision.
I think what was unanticipated, I don’t know that the White House—I mean, I think there were people in the White House who were advising the president, and some have said afterward, “This was the biggest mistake you ever made, or you will have ever made."I don’t know about that, but I do think that they did not entirely foresee that it inevitably was going to lead to the appointment, not necessarily of Bob Mueller the person, but it was going to inevitably lead to the appointment of a special prosecutor.
Why inevitably?
It’s just there are too many—the ship took too many hits before you’ve got to do something.And institutions being what they are, another aspect of Washington is administrations come and go, but the task of the Justice Department is to preserve, in the first instance, as any institution would, is to protect itself, and to protect the integrity of the Justice Department.There were, frankly, at least in my view, too many hits sustained where it narrowed the available options to the deputy attorney general as to now what to do about overseeing the Russian investigation as a result of the fact of, you know, you have the White House involved; you have Jeff Sessions and his testimony in connection with the confirmation.You have Jeff Sessions recuse himself.You have Jim Comey fired.And the deputy attorney general now has all of this on his head.At the same time, when he has nobody else in political positions, at least at that time, and frankly even now, for, in large measure, Congress has confirmed very few of the other available presidential appointments within the Justice Department—at the time, it was just basically the attorney general, who’s recused; the deputy, who’s Rod; the associate attorney general, [Rachel Brand], who later resigned, and nobody else within the department.How is the department supposed to function when the deputy attorney general now has this investigation, and there's nobody else in place?He’s got a job to do.And I'm sure he’s saying to himself, in terms of the preservation of the institution, “I need to get this thing in a place where it can go off on its own, and I can actually do the job that I was appointed and confirmed to do, which is to be the deputy attorney general of the United States,” which is not limited to the Russia investigation.There's a big job to do.
Institutionally, again, my view is that his options were narrowed, and it was really the only available choice.
Why Bob Mueller, and what are the implications of that decision?
I think Bob Mueller is one of the few people who would be on my list and, frankly, anybody’s list who knows this business of the top two or three people in the country capable of doing the investigation with sufficient reputation and respect on a bipartisan basis, so that his decisions, whether they run consistent with or counter to your politics, the public, the country will come to respect and accept, more importantly.So he is the right choice.
… You know what it, in some ways, feels like to be Bob Mueller and sit there at that desk and build a team, aim it in a direction, take the small pieces, and—
What few people realize is that, when you become a special prosecutor and an independent counsel, they give you a piece of paper with a mandate.At that moment, you don’t have anything else.You don’t have a staff.You don’t have agents.You don’t have prosecutors.You don’t have an office.You don’t have secretaries.You don’t have a travel department.You don’t even have a legal pad and paper clip and a pen.All of that stuff you have to build first, and then you can start to do your job.
That’s a very hard thing to do when you're also operating in a political environment that expects, based upon my experience and public sentiment, you’ve got about 18 months and not too much more to show results for that investigation.Otherwise, you wear out your welcome, and the public’s patience wears thin.Then it usually is a case of diminishing returns, which every special prosecutor tends to find out after too long.So you don’t have too long, is the point.You have a relatively small window of time in order to do what the country, public sentiment, in a bipartisan fashion, has tasked you to do.And you do it, and then you get out.As I like to say, you try to escape Washington with your head still on your shoulders and your reputation still reasonably intact.Now, that doesn’t mean you can't avoid battles.There are battles.But you have a limited window of opportunity to accomplish the task.
… Can you tell what they're doing in those early days, where they were headed?
Well, I think they're doing what you’d expect, which is to press and be aggressive.I think you want to bring prosecutions against certain select individuals to the extent crimes have been committed, in order to apply pressure to find out whether there's any more information that can't be gleaned or garnered any other way than to apply pressure, in order to be certain that you have performed your obligation, which is a comprehensive investigation to uncover the facts necessary to make judgments.
I think they have also shown the willingness and ability to press forward with prosecutions and to do so, frankly, as quickly as could have been expected, in a positive way, meaning that’s what—spending too much time in the investigative stage and waiting too long to bring cases, I think, is what has befallen other special counsel or special prosecutors and has seriously detracted from their ability to accomplish the mission.
So you roll out [former campaign manager Paul] Manafort.You secretly reveal a name nobody knew, [former foreign policy adviser George] Papadopoulos.[Former foreign policy adviser Carter] Page gets wrapped up, Flynn.
Right.The other thing he’s done well, and has been able, at least so far, to get away with it, is to remain relatively speaking anonymous and not with any public comment, other than the very bare-bones press releases; in other words, to do it precisely by the book.If anybody needs to speak, the deputy attorney general speaks.He’s not holding press conferences or doing interviews, and he’s not being quoted.He has avoided, in large measure, the press.There’s no pictures of him coming out of his house with his coffee cup in hand, traveling down the driveway.I don’t know how they’ve been able to avoid that, but that’s—I know what I had to do to try to avoid it.But that’s beneficial.
So Comey releasing memos—
I think that’s Jim Comey in part thinking that the world revolved around him.And the reality is, the world didn’t revolve around him.I mean, he was an important player and factor in all of this, but I think there were other far more important things to do with what resulted in the decision to appoint a special prosecutor.
And those memos that he wrote, have you read them?
I've read them, yes.The ones—you know, the ones that have been released to the public.
And?
I take him at his word.He was concerned.He was troubled about where this was headed.He didn’t trust the president, and I guess he didn’t trust the president to tell the truth.But I also think that he didn’t completely understand, from the president’s perspective, why there would have been so much consternation and concern, frankly, with Jim Comey.I don’t think it reflected the fact that Jim Comey seemed to be particularly self-aware about what was going on here.But that may be overly critical.But that was my sense of it.
[How do you see the president’s pushback?]
I am very much of the view that I completely understand the political dynamic, and the president has the right and has the prerogative in order to push back. And he is here.It’s appropriate for him to be raising the kinds of questions now, I think, legitimately, about, well, how long is this going to go on?I don’t expect that this should last during the life of the administration.Is this going to be brought to a conclusion, for example, before the midterm elections?
The issues with regard to whether the president submits to an interview: There are some legitimate questions there about, for example, under Starr—understandable desire by the special prosecutor’s office to want to inquire about the Jim Comey firing, the president’s conversations with Comey concerning the Michael Flynn investigation.But, you know, at the end of the day, I'm not sure that Rudy Giuliani is wrong to fire back the other direction and say, “Why would anyone be advising a client to submit to an interview with regard to what I tried to explain to you: there's nothing improper about the president firing the FBI director, which he can do for any reason or no reason at all?"So if that’s the case, and you really don’t think that there's any plausible way that that ever could be deemed to be criminal obstruction of justice, why would the president submit to an interview in which the only exposure that he has is the exposure of submitting to an interview and lying under oath or making a false statement to law enforcement?
Rudy’s right to say, well, how is that any different than the Martha Stewart case?She submits to an interview to talk about insider trading that didn’t exist and wasn’t a crime.Why would you give somebody the opportunity, a prosecutor the power to prosecute you for something that isn't a crime, and the only thing they can prosecute you for is false statements or perjury.
Perjury trap.
Yeah.… I think there's merit to that.Now, if they want to talk about Russia collusion, they want to talk about the president’s activities during the course of the campaign, any number of other things, which are sort of within the core of Bob Mueller’s mandate, I'm sure that something will be worked out.I imagine that’s the discussion that’s going on right now.But that’s the kind of thing where the president and the political process, it’s appropriate for him to defend himself and to push back.That’s different than trying to obstruct the investigation or talk to witnesses before they're talked to by the investigators, and things that really come close, if not over the line, involving obstruction of the investigation itself.
When Mueller sends some of it up to the Southern District of New York, some of the case, the Cohen part, help me fit that into this big story we are talking about.
Well, I think it suggested probably it’s not part of the big story.I think that his judgment is that that conduct, independently, has merit in terms of prosecutorial action.But if you really thought that that was going to lead someplace that would be of benefit to the core mandate that Bob Mueller has, I'm not sure that he would have relinquished control over it.
It suggests to me that that prosecution is going to make its way to a conclusion, but it’s not necessarily going to be one that will take investigators anyplace that fulfills the mandate.
Certainly lit the president up.He had said to The New York Times, from the Oval Office: “This is a redline here.I don’t mind the investigation going for Russian collusion, but when it comes to my family or it comes to my business, that’s a line I don’t want the investigation to cross."
Well, I don’t think that line was crossed there.I mean, that suggests that that investigation is now going to proceed forward in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District.I think the president is right to say, “If this investigation drifts into the neighborhood of investigating the Trump Organization in the Southern District of New York, that I'm going to have a problem with."I think he’s probably right to be concerned about that.
OK. So now in the pushback, bringing Rudy in, getting rid of [John] Dowd and [Ty] Cobb, who were doing what regular Washington lawyers might do, really for the first time, Trump gets these guys, says: “I’ll shut up.I'll stay in the background.You give them production; give them people on the staff to interview.We’ll play nice."That’s all.That’s the right thing to do, I would assume, from your point of view.
Generally speaking, I think he would have been advised that, you know, ride this out.If there's no “there” there, this can be made to go away.Cooperating with the investigation is the surest way to get to the finish line the soonest.And yes, Mr. President, you're probably going to have to submit to an interview, because until you do, the investigation will not be brought, at least as to you being brought to closure.So that was the advice I'm sure that he was given, or some variation of that.
... With Mr. Giuliani out front? ... Doing what?
Pressing and pushing back the other direction, in some ways not as artfully as others, but generally speaking, with a strategy now, of we need to apply political pressure in the public domain to get public sentiment around the notion that, with regard to the president, Bob Mueller needs to wrap this thing up in relatively short order.Otherwise you're doing great damage, unnecessary damage to the administration and ultimately to the country, which is, by the way, that’s an appealing argument, and that’s an appropriate argument for the president to press and to push back on. And that’s what they're doing.
I think the recognition and the change of strategy was that if they didn’t do it and apply that kind of pressure, it wasn’t going to happen in a vacuum.They need to turn up the heat, and that’s what they're doing.
Now, let me ask you.I understand that there's propriety and taste involved in all of these things.This idea of calling the press the “enemy of the people,” of calling this a “witch hunt,” of calling it, you know, all the phrases that the guy’s really good at slogans—he’s a salesman—its effect on people’s sense of, is the FBI actually capable?Is the Justice Department, are Rosenstein, is Mueller, are the attorneys working there, the 18 that’s working with him, are they good Americans or the deep state that’s after the president of the United States?
Look, I think the public is sophisticated enough.I don’t think people are stupid.I think the public is sophisticated enough to understand the difference and to separate out those individuals who really do have the merits of an investigation at heart, in the best interests of country, and the professionals.And in my judgment, that would include Rod Rosenstein, despite whatever anybody else might say, and also Bob Mueller.
Is the president right to question the motivations of some people within the FBI? .I think events have proven that to be the case.I think there were some things that were going on that, frankly, from my taste, were exceedingly disheartening and disappointing.I mean, you shouldn’t have agents talking about things like the deep state and settling into an investigation of the opposition and the political process.That’s very dangerous stuff, and bad, and the president was right to call them out on it.
So yeah, like anything else in life, there's a few bad eggs, and they needed to be rooted out.I don’t know whether that adds up to a deep state or not.But it is troubling nonetheless.There were games being played, frankly, with the FISA Court, the Foreign Intelligence [Surveillance] Court, that in my judgment, are troubling and warrant further investigation.And also, I mean the president was right, frankly, to call out, in connection with the prior administration, certain actions of then-Attorney General [Loretta Lynch] and Jim Comey, too, and others with regard to how the investigation involving the email server and the Clinton Foundation was carried out in the political process, and also, the efforts and the non-efforts with regard to, on the one hand, the Hillary Clinton investigation in the middle of a presidential campaign, as well as what we didn’t know at the time, an investigation being conducted by the FBI with regard to Russia collusion or whatever.
The exercise of that kind of power by the FBI, while necessary, doesn’t change the fact that that’s dangerous.And when it collides with the political process, that’s particularly dangerous.It doesn’t mean it’s wrong to be conducting an investigation; it just means that you're depending an awful lot on the integrity of the decision makers to be mindful of just how dangerous that is and how carefully they need to tread in that area.It is not a desirable thing.I don’t care how it happened, except for the FBI or the investigation to be having access or a window within a presidential campaign by getting court authorization to be conducting surveillance.
Understand that it was collateral with regard to the people within the campaign, but whether collateral or otherwise, you know, that’s dangerous stuff.As I've always said, the intersection of politics and prosecution is a dangerous mix, and what you don’t want to have happen is you don’t want prosecution to just become—or investigation, criminal investigation, to just be politics by other means.That is something that the public is sophisticated enough to understand how very dangerous that is.And that, by the way, that’s a bipartisan view.Depending on who the victim of that is, it doesn’t matter.Whatever it is, that’s dangerous.The exercise of power in that area is, frankly, antithetical to a democracy, sometimes with regard to national security necessary, but necessary-comma, dangerous-exclamation point.
Let me ask you a final question from me.What do you think Donald Trump, at the end of this 18-month period, learned about the law, learned about Washington, learned about all of this?How is he different, do you think, than he was when he walked into Washington?
The system, notwithstanding the extraordinary powers of the presidency, the constitutional system has an amazing ability to push back.And you're not the only constituency of one, as the president.You're dealing with government officials, in some cases, who extend beyond administration, right?You have a limited ability to appoint the political people within the various departments and agencies.But remember, there's a career staff that’s there and will be there, was there before you got there and will be there long after you go.You have Congress to deal with.… One of the things, I'm sure, that this president has learned, as every president learns: Yes, I have the ability to hire and fire, but I also am answerable, ultimately, to the people, and I'm answerable to Congress, in many respects, meaning I can hire and fire, and I can appoint a new attorney general.But good luck with trying to get one confirmed.
So that’s a political reality.That may be too nuts and bolts for the average attention of the average American.But everybody understands that what that ultimately means is that the president is powerful, but he’s not above the law.He’s answerable to the people, and he’s answerable to people within the political process, and within the constitutional system. …
And Jim Comey, what did this experience teach him?
I don’t know.I guess he had two experiences, because remember, he had a significant preceding experience with George W. Bush, where he stood up to the White House and called them out on something, and they backed down, or at least he perceived that the president backed down.Maybe that was an experience that he may have taken some wrong lessons from.I mean, the president backed down because the president in that case ultimately decided that that was the right thing to do.The president doesn’t have to agree with you that it’s the right thing to do.
I think Jim Comey’s view of the world is that if he decides that it’s the right thing to do, everybody else should agree with him.I have news for him: It doesn’t work that way, and it particularly doesn’t work that way when you're the FBI director, and you're answerable to the president, who has the power to fire you and/or appoint someone to replace you.You're not an elected official, and he is.Not only is he an elected official.Again, he is one of only two people in the system that are elected by all the people.That’s a different world.
My sense is that Jim may have taken some wrong lessons as the result of his previous encounter with the president.
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