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The Man Who Would Be King: Inside Trump's War with the Rule of Law
Donald Trump entered the Oval Office on January 20, 2017, with a fundamental misunderstanding of presidential power. Having spent decades as a New York real estate developer where consequences meant little more than bad press and civil lawsuits, Trump approached the presidency with the same brash tactics that had served him in business. What he failed to grasp was that Washington operated by different rules-where conflicts of interest, separation of powers, and even the appearance of impropriety carried serious weight. Michael Schmidt's meticulous account reveals how Trump's collision with these institutional guardrails triggered unprecedented chaos at the highest levels of American government, placing two unlikely figures-FBI Director James Comey and White House Counsel Don McGahn-at the center of a constitutional storm that would define the Trump presidency.
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The Institutionalist: Comey's Fateful Decision
By 2016, FBI Director James Comey had settled into a comfortable routine with his wife Patrice in their McLean, Virginia home. Their stark differences regarding politics were emblematic of Comey's approach to his work-while Patrice viewed politics as a vehicle for social progress, Comey saw it as a dangerous contaminant that corrupted everything it touched. This fundamental belief would drive his most controversial decision.
As the Clinton email investigation neared its conclusion in June 2016, Comey worried about the toxic partisan environment dividing America into separate realities. He had observed Republicans embracing conspiracy theories while Democrats disregarded inconvenient facts-like when Attorney General Lynch insisted he refer to the Clinton "investigation" as a "matter," aligning with campaign messaging. In this climate, Comey developed what he believed was the only solution: personally announcing the investigation's conclusion without Justice Department involvement.
On July 5, Comey called Attorney General Lynch to inform her he would hold a press conference but refused to reveal its subject. At home, Patrice anxiously watched television as her husband methodically detailed Clinton's recklessness with classified information, building what seemed like a case for criminal charges before finally delivering his conclusion: "No reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case." Later, Comey would explain his unusual approach: "If I had led with the exoneration, nobody would have listened to anything else."
The Clinton campaign strategically embraced Comey's conclusions rather than fighting with him. Despite viewing his actions as inappropriate, they decided not to pick a fight with the FBI mid-campaign. Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi even praised Comey as "a great man." Only former Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller publicly criticized him, writing that he had committed an "abuse of power" by publicly criticizing someone who wasn't being charged.
What no one realized was how this decision would set in motion a chain of events that would ultimately lead to Trump's presidency and create the conditions for an unprecedented constitutional crisis.
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America's Greatest Intelligence Failure Since 9/11
While most Americans were focused on the presidential campaign, a catastrophic intelligence failure was unfolding. From an unremarkable building in St. Petersburg, Russia's Internet Research Agency launched a comprehensive disinformation campaign exploiting American social divisions. Simultaneously, Russian intelligence services conducted extensive hacking operations targeting political organizations.
Despite obtaining presidential emails through these hacks, American intelligence agencies misinterpreted Russia's intentions, viewing them merely as intelligence gathering rather than recognizing plans to weaponize the stolen information. By summer 2016, intelligence officials had little awareness of Russia's disinformation campaign or plans to deploy stolen emails. The significance of these operations was so underestimated that Senate Majority Leader McConnell fell asleep during a classified Russia briefing.
This collective blindness to Russia would prove to be America's greatest intelligence failure since 9/11. Unlike after those attacks, no bipartisan commission would be formed to investigate this catastrophic intelligence failure that would dramatically alter American history.
What made this failure even more troubling was Trump's long history of Russian connections. His affinity for Russia stretched back decades, beginning with his first Soviet Union visit in 1987 with his Russian-speaking first wife Ivana. By 2007, Trump was publicly praising Putin as "doing a great job" and began selling Trump Vodka in Russia. His business ties deepened with a suspicious 2008 real estate deal, selling a Florida mansion to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million after purchasing it for $41.35 million just three years earlier.
Trump's campaign assembled a remarkable collection of Russia-linked figures: Michael Cohen pursued Trump Tower Moscow during the campaign; Carter Page had previously provided documents to Russian intelligence officers; George Papadopoulos established channels with Russian officials; and Paul Manafort had deep ties to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, to whom he reportedly owed $19 million.
The FBI faced a dilemma about how to investigate these connections during a presidential campaign. Recent counterintelligence failures, including a debacle involving a double-dealing informant who claimed to have NSA documents, made them wary of the political minefield they were entering. This caution would have profound consequences for the investigation's trajectory and the nation's future.
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The October Surprise: How Weiner's Laptop Changed History
In August 2016, a seemingly unrelated scandal erupted that would have profound implications for the election. After seeing a cryptic reference in a Washington Babylon article, Daily Mail reporter Alana Goodman paid several thousand dollars for information about former Congressman Anthony Weiner sexting with a fifteen-year-old girl.
When the story broke on September 20, federal investigators quickly seized Weiner's devices. On his laptop, FBI agents discovered over 300,000 emails, including correspondence from Clinton's private email domains. This discovery was potentially significant because the FBI had never found emails from Clinton's first two months as Secretary of State-a period investigators believed might contain crucial evidence about her knowledge of circumventing normal email channels.
Despite the importance of this find, the matter somehow "fell off the radar" for senior FBI officials for three weeks until mid-October, when a Justice Department official named George Toscas casually inquired about it after an unrelated meeting.
On October 27, Comey returned home to McLean with devastating news. The Weiner investigation had uncovered "thousands of emails" from Hillary Clinton, potentially including messages the FBI had never previously examined. With the election just twelve days away, the Clinton email investigation Comey had publicly closed in July was about to "roar back to life."
In their kitchen, Comey told his wife Patrice it was "a shitshow." Patrice was aghast, immediately recognizing the political implications. "You can't do this this close to the election," she pleaded. Comey explained his dilemma: he had promised Congress transparency about any new developments. If the FBI quietly obtained a warrant without informing Congress, it would inevitably leak, making it appear the bureau was hiding the renewed investigation after pledging transparency.
The next morning, Comey sent a letter to Congress notifying them of the situation; it immediately leaked, creating exactly the firestorm Patrice had feared. On Election Day, Comey abstained from voting, having decided long before not to take sides as FBI Director. Patrice, however, voted for Clinton with tears in her eyes. When Trump won, Comey's first thought was, "Did we contribute to this? Is this something I did?" He didn't consider that his own job might be in jeopardy, nor that Trump might target him with "vengeance and retribution and character assassination."
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The First Crisis: Flynn's Russian Deception
What truly troubled Comey as Trump's presidency began was classified intelligence about Michael Flynn, Trump's incoming national security adviser. After Obama imposed sanctions on Russia for election meddling, intelligence analysts discovered through wiretaps that Flynn had spoken with Russian Ambassador Kislyak five times on the day sanctions were announced, urging Russia not to overreact and suggesting the Trump administration might offer leniency.
When the Washington Post's David Ignatius reported on these contacts, Comey was alarmed at what appeared to be a leak of highly classified FISA intelligence. More troubling was that when questioned publicly, Vice President Pence and Chief of Staff Priebus insisted Flynn hadn't discussed sanctions-meaning either they were all conspiring in a cover-up or Flynn had lied to the incoming administration.
In the FBI Director's conference room, Comey told his counterintelligence agents to "take a cold shot" at Flynn. For weeks, investigators had examined Flynn's phone records, contacts, and intelligence, finding little insight into why the incoming vice president and chief of staff were falsely claiming Flynn never discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador. Now they wanted to interview Flynn, and Comey chose to bypass normal protocols, sending agents directly to the White House without alerting the Justice Department or White House counsel.
Flynn, seemingly at ease, met with agents in his West Wing office, repeatedly lying about his discussions with the ambassador. Strangely, he showed no signs of deception despite claiming three times that "What a beautiful black sky" while looking into daylight. Comey was troubled-the national security adviser had broken the law and lied about Russia, deepening suspicions about Trump's associates.
Despite Acting Attorney General Sally Yates warning McGahn about Flynn's potential vulnerability to Russian blackmail on January 26, Flynn remained in his position for eighteen more days. During this period, Trump allowed Flynn to participate in a call with Putin despite knowing about his misconduct. The situation only came to a head when The Washington Post reported that Flynn had indeed discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador.
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"Let This Go": Trump's First Obstruction Attempt
The day after Flynn's resignation, Trump asked Comey to stay behind alone after a terrorism briefing. "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," Trump told him. "He is a good guy." Comey, stunned, only replied that Flynn was indeed a good guy. That evening, Comey documented the disturbing encounter in a memo.
This pattern of inappropriate requests continued. On March 30, Trump called Comey directly, complaining that the Russia investigation was hampering his presidency. He insisted he had nothing to hide, ranted about the Steele dossier ("Can you imagine me, hookers? I have a beautiful wife"), and demanded Comey publicly announce he wasn't under investigation.
When Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 3, he admitted feeling "mildly nauseous" that his actions might have affected the election. Trump obsessed over this testimony, watching it repeatedly at his Bedminster golf club. "He told me three times that I wasn't under investigation," Trump complained to Bannon, who warned him that firing the FBI director wouldn't end the Russia inquiry.
Nevertheless, on May 9, Trump abruptly decided to fire Comey. He had Miller draft a termination letter filled with problematic claims about the Russia investigation. When McGahn learned of this, he was alarmed by the impulsive approach and inflammatory letter, which read like "a rant from a stump speech." Despite believing Comey should go, McGahn recognized firing him during an investigation would appear obstructive.
Comey learned of his firing in the most humiliating way possible-from television screens while addressing FBI staff in Los Angeles. After the shock announcement, he was followed by news helicopters in a scene reminiscent of the O.J. Simpson chase as he made his way to the airport. Most crucially, Comey still had his memos documenting his troubling interactions with Trump, which he now viewed as evidence of the president's attempts to interfere with the Russia investigation.
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The Road to Mueller: A Constitutional Crisis Unfolds
After discovering Comey had written contemporaneous memos about his disturbing interactions with Trump, New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt pursued the lead. When Comey's friend Dan Richman finally called back, he read Schmidt a bombshell memo documenting Trump's February 14 Oval Office meeting where the president asked Comey to "let Flynn go." This explosive revelation suggested potential obstruction of justice.
The next day, FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe informed Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein that the bureau had opened investigations into whether Trump was a Russian agent and had obstructed justice. McCabe urged Rosenstein to appoint a special counsel to protect the investigation's independence, revealing that Comey had documented his interactions with Trump in memos kept in an FBI safe.
Rosenstein, who had already approached Robert Mueller about the special counsel role, appeared receptive but unconvinced, confiding to McCabe that he felt he could trust no one at the White House after they had misrepresented his role in Comey's firing. In an astonishing moment, Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire to record Trump, saying "I could record the President... They wouldn't even know it was there." He even discussed invoking the Twenty-fifth Amendment, claiming he'd "done the math" and would need six cabinet members beyond Sessions and Kelly to remove Trump.
When McCabe announced he would brief the congressional Gang of Eight about the FBI's investigations into Trump and Sessions, Rosenstein panicked. Ultimately, facing congressional pressure and having lost control of the FBI, Rosenstein returned to Mueller-who had ironically met with Trump that very day about the FBI director position-and convinced him to leave his law firm and take the special counsel role.
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"He's Saying Some Crazy Shit": McGahn's Impossible Position
Just six days after Mueller's appointment, Trump called McGahn from Air Force One during his Middle East trip with an alarming demand: fire the special counsel. Trump had formulated a three-pronged argument for Mueller's removal, including a frivolous claim about membership fees at Trump National Golf Club. McGahn firmly refused, warning Trump that firing Mueller so soon after Comey would make them look guilty.
McGahn, who had tolerated Trump's chaotic presidency because it gave him unprecedented power to reshape the judiciary, now worried about his own legal exposure. Trump's behavior made McGahn wonder if the president was hiding something and why he couldn't simply "play president."
The situation intensified in June when Trump called McGahn at home on his birthday weekend, demanding he have Mueller removed for alleged conflicts of interest. "You gotta do this. You gotta call Rod," Trump insisted during multiple calls, becoming increasingly manic. McGahn had no intention of calling Rosenstein, fearing it would trigger resignations similar to Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre and create a constitutional crisis.
Instead, McGahn decided to resign. He had kept his resignation letter ready since the administration's early days, and after consulting with his lawyer Bill Burck, who warned him that firing Mueller would make McGahn a co-conspirator in obstruction of justice, McGahn went to the White House to pack up his office. However, logistical challenges prevented him from formally resigning that weekend-Trump was at Camp David and few senior officials were in the West Wing. After conversations with Bannon and Priebus, who urged him to stay and focus on judicial appointments, McGahn reluctantly returned to work on Monday without submitting his resignation.
By late 2017, McGahn's cooperation with Mueller's team had evolved into something extraordinary. After his initial interviews, prosecutors asked him to alert them if Trump did anything that could constitute obstruction. This unprecedented request essentially invited McGahn to become an informant on the president he served-a tactic typically used for organized crime or terrorism investigations, not for monitoring the White House.
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The Witness and the President: A White House Divided
Mueller's team had unprecedented access to White House officials but struggled to find the perfect witness-someone with proximity to events, solid memory, and complete truthfulness. The breakthrough came with McGahn's testimony. Unlike other witnesses, he had clear recollection, seemed truthful, knew Trump's thinking, and had created a paper trail.
During his third day of interviews, as prosecutors finished their questions, McGahn's lawyer Bill Burck intervened to ensure McGahn disclosed Trump's attempt to fire Mueller in June-a reluctant but truthful revelation that could damage the president. This disclosure of a previously unknown obstruction incident intrigued investigators, who immediately scheduled another interview for after the new year.
Six weeks after McGahn first told Mueller about Trump's attempt to fire him, the story broke in the Times: "Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, but Backed Off When White House Counsel Threatened to Quit." Trump raged from Air Force One returning from Davos, demanding McGahn issue a statement refuting the story.
Burck and McGahn quickly agreed they couldn't comply with Trump's demand. Issuing a statement contradicting what McGahn had told Mueller would be a lie that would destroy his credibility with investigators and potentially expose him to legal jeopardy. More importantly, it would undermine the obstruction case against the president.
Trump's confrontation with McGahn continued, with Trump fixating on who leaked the Mueller firing story. "What are these notes?" Trump demanded, referring to Annie Donaldson's notes given to Mueller. "Lawyers don't take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes."
McGahn explained he kept notes like all real lawyers to maintain accurate records, which actually helped Trump more than hurt him. Trump retorted, "I've had a lot of great lawyers, like Roy Cohn. He did not take notes."
Despite the heated exchange, McGahn kept his job and his testimony remained intact. Burck called Mueller's team to update them, inadvertently providing them with real-time evidence of potential witness tampering-a significant development that could add a powerful new layer to Mueller's case.
Capítulo 10
The Report and the Cover-up: How Justice Was Undermined
On March 22, 2019, Mueller delivered his 448-page report to the Justice Department. Barr and Rosenstein spent hours reviewing it, confirming there was no provable criminal conspiracy with Russia and that Mueller had declined to make an obstruction determination. That Sunday, Barr seized the opportunity to frame the narrative, sending Congress a letter that selectively quoted Mueller's findings in a way highly favorable to Trump.
Where Mueller had written that Russia worked to secure Trump's victory and the campaign expected to benefit from stolen information, Barr simply stated there was no established conspiracy. On obstruction, Barr declared insufficient evidence to charge Trump-directly contradicting Mueller's team, who had written summaries intended for immediate public release.
Mueller sent two increasingly forceful letters to Barr protesting this mischaracterization, but Barr dismissed these concerns during a tense phone call, refusing to release Mueller's summaries. "It was my baby," Barr later told Congress, effectively sidelining Mueller.
As the Mueller report was finally released, Attorney General Barr held a press conference where he repeatedly emphasized "no collusion," echoing Trump's preferred language. The actual report revealed numerous damning incidents of potential obstruction, including Trump instructing Corey Lewandowski to pressure Sessions to unrecuse himself or be fired. The report documented at least four clear instances of Trump breaking the law to contain the investigation, including the attempt to fire Mueller and forcing McGahn to recant his testimony.
Yet the sheer volume of obstructive acts created a kind of protective chaos, preventing any single incident from gaining traction. Most significantly, Mueller never conducted a counterintelligence investigation into Trump's Russian ties-Rosenstein had quietly limited Mueller to criminal matters only, without informing McCabe.
Mueller's congressional testimony proved disastrous. Despite Democrats hoping he would articulate damaging evidence against Trump, Mueller struggled throughout the hearing. He asked lawmakers to repeat questions more than a dozen times, had difficulty recalling basic facts, and even contradicted his own report when answering Representative Ted Lieu about why he didn't indict Trump. Mueller's condition was so concerning that even the normally combative Jim Jordan remarked to a staff member, "I feel bad for the guy." Mueller's performance effectively ended any momentum his investigation might have generated against Trump.
Capítulo 11
The Aftermath: Trump Unleashed
Emboldened by Mueller's weak testimony, Trump immediately combined the worst accusations from both volumes of the Mueller report into a single act. Just eighteen hours after Mueller finished testifying, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and asked him to interfere in the 2020 election by investigating Joe Biden's son and whether Ukraine had helped Democrats in 2016. Trump tied these requests to both a White House meeting Zelensky desperately wanted and $391 million in military aid that Trump had mysteriously withheld from Ukraine.
The whistleblower's complaint accomplished what Mueller couldn't-it stopped Trump in his tracks and set him on the path to impeachment. As the scandal unfolded, even Nancy Pelosi, who had firmly resisted impeachment after the Mueller report, concluded the House had no choice but to act in defense of the Constitution, regardless of the Senate's likely refusal to convict.
Despite these revelations and even pursuing unconventional leads like a private investigator who claimed to be monitoring Bolton's trash, Republicans remained unmoved, acquitting Trump with only Romney breaking ranks on one article.
The impeachment's failure marked the defeat of all institutional attempts to check Trump. With acquittal secured, Barr began systematically dismantling the investigations that had threatened Trump, from questioning the Russia probe's origins to intervening in Roger Stone's sentencing and ultimately dropping Michael Flynn's prosecution-finally fulfilling what Trump had asked Comey to do years earlier.
Throughout this tumultuous period, former Marine General John Kelly watched in horror as Trump repeatedly demonstrated contempt for American institutions and values. After McCain's death, Trump refused to lower the White House flag or issue a respectful statement, privately raging that McCain was "last in his class and got shot down." Trump's contempt for wounded soldiers was clear when he asked, "Why the fuck do you think they're heroes? They're losers."
Before resigning, Kelly warned Trump: "Don't pick a bootlicker, don't pick a yes-man... You will be impeached." Trump dismissed the warning, and his replacement Mulvaney announced, "We're going to let the president be the president." A year later, Trump was indeed impeached, but the institutional guardrails that might have contained him had already been fatally weakened.
