Sitting at the end of Priebus’s long conference table and looking down at his phone, Bannon threatened Hicks: “That’s it. I’m going to war. You have no idea who you’re messing with. I will end you.”
“You’re going to war?” Hicks replied. “What the fuck have you been doing for the last three months? You’ve been twiddling on your BlackBerry leaking to everybody.”
Hicks was furious. “The fact that my integrity is being questioned in front of the three of you, I can’t believe this,” she told Bannon, Priebus, and Spicer. “I’m leaving. When you guys are ready to apologize to me, I’ll come back, but I’m leaving.”
That would be the last time Hicks spoke with Bannon.
* * *
—
In early June, George Conway finally withdrew himself from consideration to lead the civil division as assistant attorney general. The night of June 24, he came face-to-face with the president he decided not to serve. Conway and his wife, Kellyanne, were among the guests attending the wedding of Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin and the Scottish actress Louise Linton. The opulent event was held at one of Washington’s grandest venues, the Mellon Auditorium, a historic neoclassical building named after the former Treasury secretary Andrew Mellon. Vice President Pence officiated, and everyone who was anyone in the administration attended, including President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.
After taking their vows, Mr. and Mrs. Mnuchin were whisked away for formal pictures while guests were ushered into the cocktail reception. As guests nibbled on hors d’oeuvres before the formal seated dinner, Kellyanne Conway spotted Trump talking to a small cluster of people nearby, and she suggested to her husband that they walk over to say hello.
Trump greeted them with a big smile. But without engaging in any basic pleasantries—no “Hey, good to see you,” or “How are the kids?”—Trump brusquely jumped into a stream of complaints and epithets about how badly Jeff Sessions had failed him as an attorney general. He described how “terrible” and “crazy” it was for Sessions to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Somehow, Trump had convinced himself that George Conway retreated from the Justice Department job because he did not want to work for someone as terribly weak as Sessions.
“Hey, you know, I heard from some people that the lawyers at DOJ felt he had to recuse,” George Conway said.
“No, no,” Trump said. The president then pointed a finger at George Conway’s chest.
“You’re a smart guy, not going to work for that weak guy,” Trump said, grinning. “Very smart!”
George Conway smiled uncomfortably. After a few more minutes of Sessions bashing by Trump, the Conways said their goodbyes, explaining that others wanted to talk to Trump and they had better make their way to their table for dinner. Ironically, Sessions was supposed to sit at the Conways’ table but never showed.
The Conways stopped to get a drink, and as they stood alone together, George Conway chuckled about the president’s one-track mind. The president was uncontrollably obsessed with the “weak” Sessions. George laughed harder and was eventually doubled over.
The next morning, though, George Conway replayed in his mind the parody that was Donald J. Trump. In the light of day, he now saw the events of the previous night as deeply disturbing. He had been cackling like a kid about Trump’s buffoonish behavior. He was laughing at him, not with him. And the object of his ridicule was the president of the United States.
Eight
A COVER-UP
Trump was impatient to meet Vladimir Putin. So much so that during the transition he interrupted an interview with one of his secretary of state candidates by glancing at Reince Priebus and asking, “When can I meet with Putin? Can I meet with him before the inaugural ceremony?” Trump’s advisers told him that would be inappropriate, of course. A U.S. president was expected to meet with NATO allies before ever sitting down with the president of Russia, an adversary whose forces had just illegally interfered with the American election. Then there was the matter of protocol, which dictated that presidents-elect should not meet with foreign counterparts until they took office, out of respect for the sitting president. But Trump was hardly a disciple of diplomatic protocol. He knew what he wanted, and he did not want to take no for an answer. In the same meeting, he piped up again: “When do you think I can meet with Putin?”
Trump had to wait 168 days into his presidency for the big moment. By now, he and Putin had talked on the phone several times, and Trump liked to brag that he shared a special bond with Putin because they were “stablemates” on 60 Minutes, having been interviewed separately for unrelated segments that happened to air in the same 2015 episode of the venerated CBS News show. But they had never met face-to-face until July 7, 2017, when Trump and Putin sat down on the sidelines of the Group of Twenty summit for world leaders in Hamburg, Germany.
“It’s an honor to be with you,” Trump said as he greeted Putin, flashing the tough-boss smirk he had practiced over so many years on The Apprentice.
“Your Excellency, Mr. President,” Putin said, gamely flattering a man uniquely susceptible to it. “I spoke over the phone with you several times on very important bilateral and international issues, but phone conversation is never enough.”
The two men shook hands firmly. What they lacked in warmth, they tried to make up for in machismo. Joined by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, Trump and Putin conversed for two hours and sixteen minutes. Trump raised the matter of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, but once Putin denied any involvement by his government, they moved on to other topics. Putin convinced Trump that U.S. intelligence officials were trying to damage the U.S.-Russia relationship with phony claims of meddling. The Russians emerged with the distinct impression that Trump would not hold them accountable. “The U.S. president said that he heard clear statements from President Putin about this being untrue and that he accepted these statements,” Lavrov said, summarizing the meeting for reporters. Trump saw Hamburg as the start of a new era of diplomacy between the United States and Russia. He directed Tillerson to tell reporters that the tête-à-tête produced “very clear positive chemistry.”
Yet Trump, who harbored deep suspicions about the loyalty of national security and intelligence officials and had previously accused them of leaking information about his private discussions with foreign leaders to try to make him look bad, went to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversation with Putin. Trump personally took possession of the notes of the American interpreter and instructed the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials.
As a result, high-ranking officials at intelligence agencies and elsewhere in the government had no detailed record of what was discussed between the two presidents, beyond the readout Tillerson provided to the media. The only detail administration officials received from the interpreter was that after Putin denied any Russian involvement in the U.S. election, Trump responded by saying, “I believe you.”