Donald Trump v. The United States summary

In March of 2015, word got out that Hillary Clinton wasn’t just using a private email account while at work – she was using it as her primary email account for work. When this came to light, it reignited the Republican efforts to go after Clinton. Spurred on by senate Republicans, the matter was referred to the FBI in July of 2015 and given the code name Midyear Exam.

The key message here is: Despite his desire to be apolitical, the FBI director felt compelled to speak up.

In October, just weeks before election day, the matter was brought back to life. It all hinged on a case involving former Congressman Anthony Weiner, who was married to high-ranking Clinton aide Huma Abedin.

The Weiner investigation involved the former Congressman’s correspondence with a 15-year-old girl from North Carolina. It turned out that Weiner had used Abedin’s laptop for some of this correspondence, which in turn led the FBI to finding a new batch of emails from Clinton. 

The FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign was code-named Crossfire Hurricane. Its main concerns were: Had the Russians purposefully targeted the 2016 election in an effort to get Trump elected, and was the Trump administration directly involved? Since many within the Trump campaign had ties to Russia, there were some interesting leads.

For starters, campaign chairman Paul Manafort had previously worked as a paid political consultant for Russian oligarchs such as Oleg Deripaska. According to Deripaska, their relationship ended with Manafort owing him $19 million. Manafort had also worked alongside Konstantin Kilimnik, a Ukranian the FBI would eventually link to Russian intelligence.

The FBI investigation was still ongoing when Trump took office in early 2017. During the transition, Comey had the awkward responsibility of briefing Trump on the most pressing issues at hand. This included telling him about Russia’s cyber attacks – as well as informing him, in private, of the Steele Dossier and the possibility that Russia had compromising information on him.

But things got even more awkward for Comey once Trump moved into the White House and invited him over for a one-on-one dinner. This was not something Comey was comfortable with. During the Obama administration, Comey didn’t have dinner with the President or even take part in his regular basketball game. He wanted to make sure everyone saw the FBI and its director as not being in the President’s pocket. But that wasn’t how Trump saw things. 

One of the few people in the Trump administration with some political experience was White House Counsel Don McGahn.

As part of the Trump White House, McGahn was taking on the task of stacking the federal courts with as many conservative-friendly judges as possible. Essentially, McGahn was given free rein in this pursuit – but he quickly found it difficult to not be distracted. 

The day after Trump fired Comey, he had an Oval Office meeting with the Russian ambassador and the Russian foreign minister. The President was in a celebratory mood; he wanted them to know that the firing would put an end to the investigation that had been plaguing the administration since day one.

However, as McGahn had predicted, the firing only complicated things further. Now, it looked to the FBI like Trump was taking active steps to derail the investigation. And with Comey gone, it fell to FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe to make sure the investigation continued.

For the Mueller investigation, McGahn also sought advice from his own lawyer, William A. Burck. Burck was also essential in helping McGahn respond to Trump’s demands – which included ordering him to fire Mueller.

Burck was one of the most sought-after lawyers in Washington. He, too, found it hard to believe that Cobb was just allowing White House staff to go into interviews without any internal review or briefings beforehand. But that’s exactly what was happening.

Just days after McGahn’s interrogation with the Mueller team in March 2018, Andrew McCabe – the acting director of the FBI – was fired.

The firing of McCabe, just like the firing of Comey, became a point of interest for the Mueller team – but Trump continued to act as though he had every right to use the executive branch of the government to go after his enemies. This time, he wanted McGahn to prosecute Hillary Clinton and James Comey.

By the summer of 2018, McGahn and Trump were barely on speaking terms. And as far as McGahn could determine, the rumors about him blocking a Manafort pardon had been planted by others in the White House. They were part of a disinformation campaign designed to further put him at odds with the President. 

Since McGahn had been vocal in his doubts that the President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, should have top-level security clearance, he believed Kushner and Ivanka Trump were behind this disinformation. Indeed, it looked as though McGahn’s days in the White House were numbered.