THE ABSURD TIMESCharles I of England was deposed and finally beheaded by Cromwell as part of a revolution, based mainly on the behavior of a bad King.
Monarchies all over Europe protested and had issued tracts and invectives against the English people for this behavior. Cromwell had the good sense to choose Milton as his Latin Secretary (sort of a Press Secretary as all "important" documents were written in Latin) to defend the actions of the English people and no person came even close to matching Milton's skill.
Of course, his task was made far easier by the fact that Charles I was terrible. We are faced with someone almost as bad, and certainly more stupid.
It was not until the Restoration that the New King, Charles II assumed control that someone was able to defend the monarchy. It amounted to saying that a good king is better than a host of morons. It is by Dryden.
Above are sentiments more closely aligned with the attitudes of most Americans and against Trump.
MSM covered a demonstration against corruption in Moscow making it sound like the police were brutal and aggressive. I swear that it reminded of the show at the N.Y. Republican Convention for Bush II with it's "designated protest areas". Cops went on a riot. It was not close to as violent as the police riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.
Everyone seemed to be watching Sessions. I hate that accent as it reminds me of the racist morons who follow and support Trump. Trump has made bigotry and hate a bit of a fad.
Trump has recently increased attacks in Yemen and here is some information about a cholera epidemic there:
In Yemen, a civilian is dying nearly every hour from a massive cholera outbreak, as the ongoing U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing campaign and naval blockade has devastated the country's health, sanitation and water systems. The World Health Organization says the number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen has now reached 101,820 and continues to rise, accounting for 859 deaths. Yemen's healthcare system is also on the verge of collapse as many hospitals have shut down because of the ongoing U.S.-backed Saudi war. Only 45 percent of Yemen's hospitals are still operational. We speak to guests Dr. Mariam Aldogani and Anas Shahari of Save the Children Yemen.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: In Yemen, medical groups are warning an outbreak of cholera has infected more than 116,000 people. The World Health Organization says the water-borne illness has claimed the lives of at least 859, and Oxfam estimates cholera is claiming one life every hour in Yemen. Children under the age of 15 account for 46 percent of the cases. The WHO says the number of cases could reach 300,000, as the outbreak has now spread to 20 of Yemen's 22 provinces. Yemen's healthcare system is also on the verge of collapse, as many hospitals have shut down because of the ongoing U.S.-backed Saudi war. Only 45 percent of Yemen's hospitals are still operational. This is Dr. Hussein El Haddad, the director of one of the few hospitals in Sana'a that is still functioning.DR. HUSSEIN EL HADDAD: [translated] The situation is very bad. The children that are suffering from cholera are countless, and there aren't enough beds. The technical know-how in the hospital is also insufficient to deal with the situation we are facing.AMY GOODMAN: The cholera epidemic comes amidst a U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen and naval blockade that's left Yemen's sanitation, water and health infrastructure in shambles. The United Nations warns some 19 million of Yemen's 28 million people need some form of aid, with many of them at risk of famine. This is U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien addressing the United Nations Security Council late last month.STEPHEN O'BRIEN: Yemen now has the ignominy of being the world's largest food security crisis, with more than 17 million people who are food-insecure, 6.8 million of whom are one step away from famine. Crisis is not coming. It is not even looming. It is here today, on our watch, and ordinary people are paying the price. ... It is important to bear in mind that malnutrition and cholera are interconnected. Weakened and hungry people are more likely to contract cholera and less able to survive it. According to estimates, 150,000 cases are projected for the next six months, in addition to the broadly 60,000 current suspected cases since last April with 500 associated deaths. The scale of this latest outbreak is, as well as being depressingly predictable, a direct consequence of the conflict. And had the parties to the conflict cared, the outbreak was avoidable.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien addressing the U.N. Security Council last month. President Donald Trump signed a series of arms deals with Saudi Arabia totaling a record $110 billion during a visit to the Saudi capital. The arms deal includes tanks, artillery, ships, helicopters, missile defense systems and cybersecurity technology. United Nations monitors have warned previous Saudi-led attacks on Yemen could constitute crimes against humanity. Over 10,000 people have died since the Saudi bombing campaign began in 2015.AMY GOODMAN: For more, we go to Sana'a, Yemen, where we're joined by Anas Shahari of Save the Children Yemen. He joins us from the capital.Welcome to Democracy Now! Thanks so much for joining us. Tell us the scope of the problem.ANAS SHAHARI: The problem is very massive—excuse me. The problem is very massive. It's like we are facing a very critical situation here. A lot of people are suffering from cholera. I just received an SMS from one friend in a village just before this interview. He's telling me that the cholera is spreading in Hajjah governorate, and people are struggling to get medications. And you can imagine, every day the numbers are increasing. The upsurge is very scary. We have to deal with all of these cases as Yemenis and humanitarian organizations are struggling to respond to the needs of those people with very short funding. You know that Yemen is facing a hard economic situation. The health system is collapsing. We have a lot of social services that are not available. I can give you examples. For example, just a month or more than a month ago, garbage collectors were on strike because they were not paid their salaries. And it was rainy. And this was one of the reasons that contributed to the cholera outbreak, which is the second outbreak, and it's three times more horrific than the previous one.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And how are medical personnel able to function, given the continuing air war of Saudi Arabia as well as the armed conflicts within the country?ANAS SHAHARI: You know, people in cities where armed conflict is now ongoing are suffering the most, because they don't have hospitals to go to. There are no medical staff. And generally, people in Yemen are suffering because salaries have not been paid to the public servants for about nine months. This gives doctors, nurses, everybody a hard time, because they cannot go to hospitals. They cannot afford anything. I can give you an example. For example, now children in Yemen—8.1 million children— cannot afford healthcare services, cannot afford water to drink or sanitation services. This number is very, very large, if we are talking about the health system and the water—the water grip in the country. Every time I go to a hospital, I keep hearing doctors complaining because they haven't received their salaries to come to the hospital. And you can imagine a doctor can barely afford transportation to go to a hospital to save lives. And recently, when I was in a hospital, I saw a lot of people lying on the ground, because the outbreak happened suddenly. And people went to a hospital here in Sana'a, and they were lying on the ground. They were staying in tents in an isolation unit in a civilian hospital here. It was a very horrific situation. And everybody was suspecting cholera in their houses. For example, I always—I am always suspicious after I come back from a hospital, like maybe I will eat something that will infect my body with cholera, then I'll need to deal with it just like everybody else. So it's a whole package of hardship that we're facing in Yemen.AMY GOODMAN: Anas Shahari, we have just reached one of your colleagues, Dr. Mariam Aldogani with Save the Children in Yemen. Right now she's joining us in the field from Hudaydah governorate in Yemen, where she's treating cholera patients. The phone connection is not very good, so, folks, listen carefully. Dr. Aldogani, thank you so much for joining us. Explain what you're seeing where you are.DR. MARIAM ALDOGANI: Welcome. Yes, I'm in Hudaydah governorate, one of the affected governorates suffering from cholera.AMY GOODMAN: And what do you see? You're treating people with cholera now?DR. MARIAM ALDOGANI: We [inaudible] treated people of cholera. We see a lot of case—we saw a lot of cases in a diarrhea treatment center, which is—I am in Hudaydah. There is two main hospital centers for treating cholera, a lot of cases there. There's a problem that the [inaudible] and with very hot weather. And even the fuel is very expensive. And because there is no electricity, so imagine, with cholera and the very harsh weather, the situation has become worse. Due to the shortage of medical supply and treatment, we try to do the best. And also, as my colleague Anas mentioned, the health system collapsed. There is no salary, no [inaudible] of the hospitals or health centers. This has made—the situation is very bad.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what are you calling—DR. MARIAM ALDOGANI: And, by the way, most of the cases, they are children. For example, I can give you a data. Since the middle of May to now, [inaudible] hospital received more than 1,700 cases and four death case reported.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We're trying to go back to Anas Shahari. What do you think the world needs to do, or what are you calling for in terms of assistance to the people of Yemen at this time?ANAS SHAHARI: Well, Save the Children and the wider humanitarian community are urgently requiring more funds to expand the response and to manage and mitigate and prevent this outbreak. And we need also the international community to contribute to this crisis, which is considered the biggest crisis in the world, and increase the funding here. We also have a message to the U.N. and to the conflicting parties to facilitate and resume the public-sector salaries, like to put pressures on whoever is concerned and just to resume the public-sector salaries so that people can go back to work in hospitals and other governmental institutions. We also ask all conflicting parties to facilitate our access to the areas where we need to go and save lives.AMY GOODMAN: Earlier this month, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused President Trump of double standards, saying his administration turned a blind eye to Saudi Arabia's bombing of Yemen while claiming to promote human rights around the world.AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI: [translated] It's almost two-and-a-half years since they, the Saudis, have been bombing Yemen, not military installations, but streets, markets, mosques, hospitals and civilian houses, killing innocent people—women, children, adults. They're killing everyone. And then they—the U.S. president goes to them, Saudi Arabia, and stands by their side, and they chat with each other, they dance with each other, and they speak of human rights. And then they place sanctions against the Islamic establishment of Iran because of human rights.AMY GOODMAN: So, Anas Shahari, can you talk about the connection between war and cholera?ANAS SHAHARI: Well, the war—the war has destroyed all the—like most of the infrastructure we have here in the country. We don't have any sanitation system. The water network is destroyed. We don't have electricity. People who need to boil water before drinking it do not have the cooking gas. Fuel is very expensive, as Dr. Mariam said. The economy of the country is collapsed, has already collapsed. The health system has collapsed. I mean, the war has destroyed everything in this country. And as a Yemeni person, what I am looking for here is to stop this war, to find peaceful solutions between the parties in order for the children, who are paying the heaviest price, to continue their lives and to see brighter futures.JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And in terms of the refugees, people fleeing Yemen to escape the violence and the bombing and the collapse of the—basically, of the total infrastructure of the country, are people continuing to flee the country?ANAS SHAHARI: In the beginning, large numbers of people were fleeing, and about 3 million people fled their houses. But now this number has decreased. But people are moving from place to place, because the conflict sometimes arises in some areas. For example, in an area in Taiz, al-Mokha, there was a conflict that erupted, and people had to leave their homes. And this is also leading to other problems like children dropping classes, not going to school anymore. And now we are left with children that are abandoned behind, and they don't know what their future holds.AMY GOODMAN: Last month, thousands of Yemenis rallied in the capital Sana'a to protest the U.S. arms deal with Saudi Arabia and President Trump's visit to Riyadh. This is the Yemeni journalist Nasser Al-Rabeey.NASSER AL-RABEEY: We are here today to say no for terrorism, no for American terrorism. And we are here to say to Trump: "You kill Yemenis with Saudi hands. You support Qaeda/ISIS by supporting the Saudi Wahhabi regime."AMY GOODMAN: Anas, can you respond, as we wrap up?ANAS SHAHARI: Well, I am a Yemeni person, and I can tell you what we need in this country. We need, number one, peace. And then, number two, we need increasing funds to respond to the humanitarian need. We don't need any more weapons to come to this country. We don't need any more war. We need to live in peace. We need to respond to the needs of those outside who are starving, who are dying because of cholera, who do not find the most basic services and needs in life.AMY GOODMAN: Anas Shahari, we thank you for being with us, media officer for Save the Children, speaking to us from Sana'a, Yemen. We wish you the very best yourself, as well, and for your protection.ANAS SHAHARI: Thank you.The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.
Statement for the Record
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
James B. Comey
June 8, 2017
Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
James B. Comey
June 8, 2017
Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.
January 6 Briefing
I first met then-President-Elect Trump on Friday, January 6 in a conference room at Trump Tower in New York. I was there with other Intelligence Community (IC) leaders to brief him and his new national security team on the findings of an IC assessment concerning Russian efforts to interfere in the election. At the conclusion of that briefing, I remained alone with the President-Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.
The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.
The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI's counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect. Although we agreed it made sense for me to do the briefing, the FBI's leadership and I were concerned that the briefing might create a situation where a new President came into office uncertain about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence investigation of his personal conduct.
It is important to understand that FBI counter-intelligence investigations are different than the more-commonly known criminal investigative work. The Bureau's goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States or to steal our secrets. The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those efforts. Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted for recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves hardening a computer system that is being attacked. Sometimes it involves "turning" the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the behavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On occasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.
Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counterintelligence investigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power. When the FBI develops reason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign power or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will "open an investigation" on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about the nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.
In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI's leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President-Elect Trump's reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.
I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months – three in person and six on the phone.
January 27 Dinner
The President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the Green Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and invited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but decided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others.
It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.
The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.
My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI's traditionally independent status in the executive branch.
I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten-year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not "reliable" in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody's side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.
A few moments later, the President said, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty." I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner.
At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox: Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because "problems" come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work.
Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job, saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. He then said, "I need loyalty." I replied, "You will always get honesty from me." He paused and then said, "That's what I want, honest loyalty." I paused, and then said, "You will get that from me." As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase "honest loyalty" differently, but I decided it wouldn't be productive to push it further. The term – honest loyalty – had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.
During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn't happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren't, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it.
As was my practice for conversations with President Trump, I wrote a detailed memo about the dinner immediately afterwards and shared it with the senior leadership team of the FBI.
February 14 Oval Office Meeting
On February 14, I went to the Oval Office for a scheduled counterterrorism briefing of the President. He sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in a semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk. The Vice President, Deputy Director of the CIA, Director of the National CounterTerrorism Center, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and I
were in the semi-circle of chairs. I was directly facing the President, sitting between the Deputy CIA Director and the Director of NCTC. There were quite a few others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs.
were in the semi-circle of chairs. I was directly facing the President, sitting between the Deputy CIA Director and the Director of NCTC. There were quite a few others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs.
The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone. I stayed in my chair. As the participants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my chair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me. The last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and exchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he wanted to speak with me.
When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, "I want to talk about Mike Flynn." Flynn had resigned the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadn't done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.
The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information – a concern I shared and still share. After he had spoken for a few minutes about leaks, Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock and I could see a group of people waiting behind him. The President waved at him to close the door, saying he would be done shortly. The door closed.
The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, "He is a good guy and has been through a lot." He repeated that Flynn hadn't done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." I replied only that "he is a good guy." (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would "let this go."
The President returned briefly to the problem of leaks. I then got up and left out the door by the grandfather clock, making my way through the large group of people waiting there, including Mr. Priebus and the Vice President.
I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn's departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency.
The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the President's request, which we did not intend to abide. We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there was nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two weeks later.) The Deputy Attorney General's role was then filled in an acting capacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role.
After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. The investigation moved ahead at full speed, with none of the investigative team members – or the Department of Justice lawyers supporting them – aware of the President's request.
Shortly afterwards, I spoke with Attorney General Sessions in person to pass along the President's concerns about leaks. I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me. I told the AG that what had just happened – him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind – was inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply. For the reasons discussed above, I did not mention that the President broached the FBI's potential investigation of General Flynn.
March 30 Phone Call
On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as "a cloud" that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to "lift the cloud." I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn't find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.
Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about Russia the previous week – at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed, confirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in Congress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the confirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the investigation. I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, "We need to get that fact out." (I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change.)
The President went on to say that if there were some "satellite" associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadn't done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we weren't investigating him.
In an abrupt shift, he turned the conversation to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, saying he hadn't brought up "the McCabe thing" because I had said McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and had given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabe's wife) campaign money. Although I didn't understand why the President was bringing this up, I repeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.
He finished by stressing "the cloud" that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasn't being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do, and that we would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.
Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russia-related matters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I would await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President called me again two weeks later.
April 11 Phone Call
On the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I "get out" that he is not personally under investigation. I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that "the cloud" was getting in the way of his ability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to the Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be handled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel.
He said he would do that and added, "Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know." I did not reply or ask him what he meant by "that thing." I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended.
That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.