Trump had been scheduled to speak with Temer in March 2017, and at the time the Brazilian president was embroiled in a major corruption scandal. Before Trump and Temer’s call, White House aides foresaw what might happen and preventively urged Trump not to invite the Brazilian leader to Washington. Trump did it anyway. White House aides spent the next few weeks politely dodging calls from the Brazilian ambassador, who was trying to make good on Trump’s invitation and set up the visit. In the case of Trinidad and Tobago, Trump’s invite to Rowley forced the NSC staff to create polite ways to withdraw the offer, explaining that Trump was so busy he could not find time in his schedule to see him.
The morning of March 20, after hanging up with Putin, Trump made his way to the Oval Office. He was excited. He told McMaster he wanted to put out a statement right away. The president liked to dictate what he considered the historic successes of his conversations with foreign leaders for public distribution by the White House. Staffers tried to suggest edits, but it usually fell to McMaster to talk Trump out of ideas that would reveal too much or piss off Western allies. On this day, Trump was adamant about what he wanted the statement to say.
“I want Putin to come here,” Trump told McMaster.
“Yes, Mr. President,” McMaster said. “We’ll start working on it ASAP.”
“Let’s announce the invitation and put out a statement about it,” Trump said.
McMaster didn’t think Trump should publicly announce his invitation, much less have Putin visit Washington at all, but figured the situation could be managed. He explained to Trump that state visits or face-to-face meetings of this magnitude should be kept secret until closer to the event and after the two countries negotiated a concrete agenda. Trump seemed to relent, shrugging his shoulders.
McMaster instructed Fiona Hill, the Russia specialist on the NSC, to contact the Russian ambassador and start talks about a possible meeting. But he stressed that she should take her time. If she set up a meeting with the ambassador, they could say they were working on the visit the next time Trump asked. As McMaster was drafting and editing with his staff the White House’s statement on the Trump-Putin call, the Kremlin released its own readout of the call. The Russians almost always got their statements out before the Americans, which allowed them to shape the global media narrative on their terms. The Kremlin statement made clear what Trump had said.
“Donald Trump congratulated Vladimir Putin on his victory in the presidential election,” the statement began. It went on to say, “Special attention was paid to making progress on the question of holding a possible meeting at the highest level. In all, the conversation carried a constructive, businesslike character, and was oriented toward overcoming the problems that have piled up in U.S.-Russian relations.”
British diplomats, talking to their own sources, were incensed. They were hearing that Trump never raised the issue of the poisoning of the former Russian and British double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, who had defected to the U.K. They called their American contacts at the State Department and in the White House demanding an explanation. For her part, British prime minister Theresa May chose intentionally not to wish Putin well, still waiting for him to acknowledge the poisoning. Her spokesperson told reporters May wanted to have independent observers assess the Russian election before she commented on it.
The Russians had not exaggerated or misstated the substance of the call, as they often did, and Trump was hardly shy about confirming the truth. Sarah Sanders told White House reporters in the early afternoon that the Kremlin readout was accurate.
Later that day, The Washington Post first reported that Trump ignored his “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” instructions. The scoop posted at 7:16 p.m., and it blanketed cable news the rest of the night. Washington’s national security professionals and Russia hawks were outraged.
Late that Tuesday night, Fox’s Sean Hannity spoke with Trump by phone, part of their ritual of conferring each night after Hannity’s broadcast. Trump told aides that Hannity had a lead about the Judases in his midst: McMaster’s deputies.
A nor’easter rolled over the mid-Atlantic early Wednesday morning, March 21, dumping six inches of snow on the Washington region, the heaviest snowfall of the season. Metro shut down a large portion of its bus and subway service, and federal agencies in Washington closed, except for essential services. McMaster and other national security staffers reported for duty, and they received a frigid reception at the Oval Office. Trump was furious and demanded that McMaster find whoever shared the detail about the cue cards with Post reporters. McMaster told Trump he, too, was furious at the leak and told him he had already begun the hunt. The president made clear he wanted an answer soon. Hours, not days.
Trump and McMaster were not the only officials infuriated by the unauthorized leak. Kelly shared some of Trump’s frustration about the unrelentingly negative press coverage of the administration and was irate that confidential briefing materials had become public. He, too, directed a search for the sources. Kelly and the White House lawyers put the search in the hands of a trusted McMaster deputy who had never accessed or reviewed the classified notes, according to the White House’s digital system, which tracks who opened or reviewed sensitive documents. That deputy, ironically, was one of the people Hannity had accused of being a leaker.
On Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers shared in the outrage. “A president’s staff shouldn’t leak,” said Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican who sometimes criticized Trump. “In cases of principle, you may need to resign. So resign. Do the right and honorable thing if you believe your conscience is compelled to do so and resign your position.”
Later that afternoon, Trump called McMaster back to his office.
“Did you figure out who did it?” the president asked.
“No, sir,” McMaster said. He laid out his strategy for the investigation. They had determined that roughly a hundred people would have had access to the notes, not counting more far-flung diplomatic staff, so it would take some time. He said they had one idea for catching the leaker, but White House lawyers worried it wouldn’t be foolproof and might risk identifying the wrong person.
“Well, I know who did it,” Trump announced, surprising McMaster and a handful of other aides in the room. “It was your guys.”
There is a dispute about whether Trump said their names aloud then or later. But in other conversations with senior White House staff, Trump would explain that Hannity had fingered Fernando Cutz and Ylli Bajraktari as the leakers.
“Get rid of them!” Trump bellowed. “This is fucking outrageous!”
McMaster, who steadfastly refused to fire people based on unfounded suspicions, tried to calm Trump down by saying neither man could be the leaker. “They would never do that, Mr. President,” McMaster said. “Never.”
The next day, March 22, the snowstorm continued to complicate commutes. Federal agencies were delayed in opening by two hours. McMaster was at his home at Fort McNair, on a peninsula on the edge of Washington where the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers meet. He had meetings that afternoon with his national security counterparts in the Quad, the strategic alliance between the United States, Australia, Japan, and India. He was hosting a dinner that night for them at his home.