July 20, 2023 • 47 mins
After the FBI director is fired, Andrew McCabe finds himself in the top job – and in the President’s crosshairs. He must choose between his new boss and the Bureau. Then his family winds up in the firing line too. What he does next will have impact far beyond the Justice Department.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
He asked me who I voted for, and I was like,
so stunned. I you know, federal government, that's like election
one on one, you're not supposed to ask the people
who work for you who they vote for.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's Andrew McCabe, former acting director of the FBI. Emphasis
on acting because mckab is describing what's essentially a job
interview with his new boss, President Donald J.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Trump.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
So the next time I went in, I said, I
decided that because the work that we were doing had
become so politically tinged, I didn't think it.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Was a good idea for me to vote for anyone.
So I didn't vote. Look, he looked at like, what
is wrong with you?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Why would you lead off a job interview by saying
I didn't vote for you?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
In case it wasn't clear from that story, Andrew McCabe,
or Andy as most people call him, doesn't really have
the right temperament. Let's say, for this new president. What's more,
Andy in this moment and for the next few years,
is focused on preserving this idea about his position and
the position of the FBI itself when it comes to politics,
(01:09):
and that is stay out of it. But as he's
about to find out in this administration, politics are as
inevitable as death and taxes. I'm Miles Taylor, and this
is the Whistleblowers On this show. We're going deep into
the heart of power to meet people who spoke out
(01:30):
about wrongdoing from inside the Trump administration. Some were in
the President's inner circle, others were on the front lines
of top agencies. But they all have a few things
in common, the ethical gray areas, the doubts about whether
what they did even made an impact, and they paid
a price. As a leader at the FBI, Andy's very
(01:54):
job was to be almost like an umpire of whistleblowing.
He reviewed the most serious complaints of wrongdoing across the
country and decided what merited investigation. But when the thing
that merits investigation is what's happening in the White House,
that's when it gets complicated. Episode three in Justice.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
We kind of felt like this is gonna be terrible
for us.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
It's summer twenty sixteen, the presidential campaign is in full swing,
and the FBI has an issue. Andy McCabe had worked
on some pretty tricky cases in the twenty years that
he was with the bureau. Russian mobsters in New York,
the Boston Marathon bombing, the twenty twelve attack on the
(02:56):
US embassy in Benghazi. In fact, that Benghazi case had
been very political. A group of House Republicans held multiple
hearings about it literally for years, focused on how Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton could have done more to prevent
the attack. Even so, this moment in July of twenty
(03:17):
sixteen was trickier. On July fifth, Andy's boss, FBI Director
James Comy, announced that, following a thorough investigation, the Bureau
would not be recommending charges against then candidate Clinton for
the use of a private email server while she was
(03:37):
at the State Department.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
We cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal
charges on these facts. Although we did not find clear
evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate
laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence
that they were extremely careless.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
You can hear Comy working really hard for balance here.
There's no clear evidence that anyone intended to break the law,
though clearly people screwed up. But for all of that
effort on Comey's part to stay above the political fray,
everyone is furious with him. GOP mainstay, Jim Jordan goes
on Fox News to complain bitterly. I might add that
(04:21):
no charges are being brought against Clinton.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Well, if she takes it seriously, how did she not
even know that's c STID for classification, you know, something
as classified versus just a letter in the alphabet.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I mean, come on, everyone knows she didn't take it
that seriously. We know that's not true. And Hillary Clinton
and the Democrats are just as mad about that comment
that she and her staff had been quote, extremely careless.
It's like an indictment of her judgment. And right in
the middle of the campaign. It's a damned if you
do moment for the FBI, and Andy as Deputy director
(04:55):
is in the thick of.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It wherever one was going to be a really strained,
uncomfortable position for us. If Hillary Clinton won the presidency,
which seemed to be the majority of predictions at that point,
we would be then working for a president who we'd
investigated in a high profile case. We thought that we'd
have a really hard time building the level of trust
(05:16):
that the FBI needs to have from the president that
we ultimately work for. So we thought that could be
really challenging.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
But the FBI can't make decisions about what to investigate
and what not to investigate just because there might be
political blowback. In a case like this, politics was almost inevitable.
In fact, the bureau they expected it.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Is simply an investigation of whether or not classified material
had been traversed unauthorized network, but the impact of it
because the people were political figures. Everyone was standing on
the sidelines cheering for one result or another. That politicizes
the effect of your work has a great impact on politics,
even if that's not your intention.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
But there are two things the FBI does not expect.
One that right after closing the investigation into Clinton's email
server in July twenty sixteen, like literally three weeks after,
they'll have to open a new case, this time into
the other campaign, the Trump campaign. The subject the campaign's
(06:23):
links to Russia and attempts from Moscow to interfere in
the election. The FBI gets a tip that someone in
the Trump campaign might have had advanced knowledge of the
Russians plans to hack and then leak emails from the
Democratic National Committee and as well as people and the
Clinton campaign. The investigation is dubbed Crossfire Hurricane. Here's Andy, you.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Don't open an investigation because you know what happened.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
You have information that a threat to national security exists,
or that a federal law, criminal law may have been violated,
and you investigate to shed light on that and to
reveal the truth.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Coming right on the heels of the whole Clinton email uproar,
the FBI is well aware of what they're walking into.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Having been kind of burned, you know, by the Clinton experience.
We went into it eyes open, realizing that this will
be uncomfortable, This could impose great stress on the organization.
But you don't refuse to investigate because you're afraid of
political backlash. That would be capitulating to politics, and that's
(07:30):
not something that FBI people do.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
It was a weekend, like a Sunday.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I think we're on our way to an event with
our daughter, and I got a phone call from a
Washington number.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
We got contacted by.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Devlin Barrett, who was then working for the Wall Street Journal,
and he wanted to comment on this story that he
was writing about this allegation that my wife had run
for office in virgin for Virginia State Senate in twenty fifteen.
While I was working at the Washington Field office and
she lost. She ran as a Democrat and lost in
(08:08):
November twenty fifteen, and she was supported in her campaign
by the then governor, Terry mccauliff. And Barrett was making
this connection because Terry mccauliffe was a friend of the Clintons,
that my wife had taken this money and we had
somehow profited from the Clintons.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
The Wall Street Journal story goes viral and gets major
play across all the networks.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
It was, you know, suggesting there was some sort of political.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Corruption or payoff here, which is preposterous. I remember how
hard she worked in that campaign. I had nothing to
do with it, and anyone can look in the Virginia
campaign database and see exactly how every dollar was spent.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
And it was just so offensive.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
So the second thing they don't expect is personal attacks
on the agents working the new investigation. By October twenty sixteen,
Trump has zeroed in on the deputy director as a
worthy target.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
It was just learned a little while ago that one
of the closest people to Hillary Clinton, with long standing
ties to her and her husband, gave more than six
hundred and seventy five thousand dollars to the campaign of
the spouse of a top FBI official, his wife who
(09:31):
helped oversee the investigation into missus Clinton's illegal email server.
No wonder they found nothing wrong. How does that look?
How does that look so dishonest?
Speaker 1 (09:53):
That article led to Trump's attacks on us in his
campaign rallies. It was just infuriating to this day, Like
even when reporters still write about this stuff, they throw
the allegation out there, and it's like, it's still insulting
and infuriating to me when people talk about that. But
she is a great supporter of my career and a
(10:13):
wonderful FBI wife, and she didn't get involved in, you know,
going out publicly and attacking Donald Trump or defending herself.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
She did what we had to do at.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
The time, which was just shut up and move on.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Shut up and move on. At the FBI, that's essentially
standard operating procedure.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
You don't get.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Involved in these sort of tawdry political jousting matches on
social media when you are a high level official in
the FBI.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I just don't do it.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Peter Baker is the senior White House correspondent for The
New York Times. I asked him if he thought there
was a kind of fundamental disconnect to how incoming president
Trump saw the Justice Department and the FBI, at least
as Watergate.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
The idea is the Justice Department was supposed to be
a political deliverer of justice is not supposed to be
the political instrument or tool or weapon of a president.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
But he saw it that way.
Speaker 6 (11:10):
That's the way he saw everything, but in particular the
Justice Department. And he said it was remarkable about Trump
is he didn't even try to hide it. Nixon at
least knew that he was supposed to hide it.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
By late twenty sixteen and early twenty seventeen, the relationship
between the incoming president and the DOJ was headed south,
and the investigation into Russia's involvement in the election was
a little more than a sore spot.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
So from the very beginning it was a sour thing.
And this conclusion that they had that they were very
firm on that Russia had interfered in the election for
the specific purpose of helping Trump undermine his conception of
his own presidency. He thought they were basically telling the
country he didn't win fair and square, and so therefore
he was completely unwilling to even listen anything they had
(11:57):
to say, even if they weren't questioning his victory.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Saw it that way.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
By the way, if it feels like we're talking a
lot about Russia on this show, it's because the country
came up in many of the whistleblower complaints and investigations
during the Trump presidency. More specifically, the White House's interactions
with Moscow set off alarm bells all across the administration,
from the outer reaches of the NSA where Reality Winner
(12:24):
worked to the president's inner circle. Okay, so Peter Strock
as a former FBI agent who worked across the Russia investigation.
He'd been at the Bureau for twenty two years, specializing
in counterintelligence before landing on Crossfire Hurricane. I asked him
about those early days of the new administration and if
(12:46):
anything felt different this time compared to what he'd seen
in the past.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
I started out, you know, Bill Clinton was the president,
that we had two Bush administrations to Obama administrations, then
finally Trump new administrations would come in, and you could
see foreign nations sort of adjusting and saying, who are
going to be the people who have influenced trying to
figure out who their contacts are, trying to get people
into that process so they could get information. But what
was curious about Trump was and you had a disproportionately
(13:13):
large number of people that had not been in government before,
certainly at that level, and so everybody was trying to
figure out who the heck are these people and how
do we influence them.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Meanwhile, over the months of November and December twenty sixteen,
the FBI was picking up signals that were alarming.
Speaker 7 (13:29):
The FBI was watching the Russian Intelligence Services, and in
the context of watching the Russian Intelligence Services, saw all
of this interaction with people who suddenly became to be
associated with the Trump campaign and later the Trump administration
up to it, including Trump himself.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
The FBI follows these leads and narrows in on a
handful of key players. Andy McKay.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Again, our investigation focused very specifically on individuals who we
knew prior to the campaign had magnificant contacts with Russians.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
And it's well known now.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Those four people were Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Mike Flynn,
and of course Paul Metaphort. They were all involved in
the campaign. They all have these historical connections with Russians.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Naturally, the bureau briefs the White House on what they're seeing.
It's only the first few months into the president's term,
and the US intelligence community is churning out these urgent
bulletins that a foreign adversary is trying to manipulate the
American political system. But at the White House there's a
bizarre lack of interest in the topic, almost like an
(14:36):
aversion to it. And for a veteran investigator like Andy,
this starts to raise some flags.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Why would someone not take this seriously, especially after we've
sat down, send our experts in there to talk to him,
you know, expressly about this threat.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
It just never lined up.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Seems to be oblivious or dismissive of the Russian spread,
which is just odd. I mean, it sticks in your
mind as an investigator trying to sort all this out.
Speaker 7 (15:09):
Peter Strock again, at the end of the day, the
FBI's job is to protect Trump, to protect the presidency.
To sit there and say, we want to create an
environment where as best you can, you can act to
protect the national security of the United States too advanced
national security interests without undo influencer penetrations or any foreign nation,
and that was concerning and never see anything like in
(15:30):
my career. Like everybody we started looking at, you lift
up those rocks and it's a disaster underneath, and it
just keeps getting worse and worse.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
One of those people the FBI was looking at was
General Mike Flynn. Now, this is Trump's pick to be
National Security Advisor. In December of twenty sixteen, while the
FBI is conducting routine surveillance of Russian foreign agents, the
bureau picks up on a conversation between Flynn, who's just
a member of the Trump transition team, point and the
(16:01):
Russian ambassador. In that conversation, they talk about sanctions the
Obama administration is imposing because of Russian interference in the election.
Now it's a sensitive national security issue, not something you're
supposed to talk about in unofficial channels before a new
administration is sworn in. And what's worse, when the FBI
(16:21):
asks Flynn about it, he just lies. Flynn lasts twenty
four days as National Security Advisor before Trump, bowing to pressure,
ends up asking him to resign. Ari Mehlberg on his
show on MSNBC is quick to point out this isn't
just a political thing. It's illegal.
Speaker 8 (16:44):
Tonight, officials say Michael Flynn lied to the FBI. That
could cost him a lot more than a job. It
can land you in jail. Flynn denied to FBI agents
he discussed US sanctions against Russia with that country's ambassador
before President Trump took office, contradicting the contents of intercepted
communications collected by intelligence agencies.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
The President is outspoken in his support but not of
the FBI or the rule of law, but of Flynn.
Speaker 9 (17:15):
Michael Flynn, General Flynn is a wonderful man. I think
he's been treated very, very unfairly by the media, as
I call it, the fake media. In many cases. I
think it's really a sad thing that he was treated
so badly, and people are trying to cover up for
a terrible loss that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
So none of this is making the bureau especially popular
with the new president. But making people happy is not
their job, and by making comments like this, the president
just draws more attention to the fact that he seems
to want to sweep this whole issue under the rug.
So Andy does what he's always done.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I just keep my head down do my job and
show up every day. That was just kind of like
a perseverance thing.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, maybe that'll work, but given who Andy is dealing
with in the White House, not so much. May ninth,
twenty seventeen, this is when everything changed. Andy is in
the middle of a very busy day.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I'm told by my staff that the Attorney General turned
General Sessions wants to talk to me. I come out,
assuming he's on the phone. They were like, no, he's
not on the phone. He wants you to come over
and see him. And so I knew, like, ooh, this
is not gonna be good.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
So I grabbed my lock bag and a notebook.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I had one security guy then as deputy, and we
walked across the street and there were As I got
to the corner, I saw there were news trucks in
front of the FBI building, which seemed odd to me.
I didn't I wasn't aware of anything newsworthy that was
going on.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
But something newsworthy was going on.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
And I walked over there, waited for a few minutes,
went into the Attorney General's office.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
So I walked in.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
And the Ag was standing in front of me, just
to the left of his desk, standing up very stiffly.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
With his coat on, which I thought was odd.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
And to my right was Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, also
standing very stiffly with his coat on. And I crossed
the room to shake the AG's hand, and he said,
I don't know if you've heard, but we've had to
fire the director of the FBI.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
We've had to fire the director of the FBI.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
And I mean, you know, you could have just knocked
me down with one finger. I was like stunned, and
I just said to him, no, I didn't hear that.
Speaker 10 (19:33):
What a stunning decision from President Trump, firing FBI Director
James Colly only the second time in American history a
president has taken that step. The decision took Comy by surprise.
He found out from TV on a recruiting trip to
Los Angeles. He thought it was a joke.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
On Good Morning America, anchor George Stephanopoulos delivers the shocking
news of James Comy's firing. The sudden dismissal of Comy
hits Andy hard. But there's something else that he's struck by.
Speaker 11 (20:01):
Two.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
One of my first concerns was that our investigation might
be shut down and we wanted to make sure that
our documents were absolutely all in line.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Not only has his boss been sacked, but Andy and
the FBI are worried the firing might be an attempt
to obstruct their investigation. Here's Peter Strock.
Speaker 7 (20:22):
There was an extraordinary sense of uncertainty about what was coming.
And I remember that, you know, the night or the
second nine after coming was fired, essentially staying there all
night figuring out, Okay, what are the next moves? And
a huge part of that concerned the investigations in and
around Trump that were going on, but also more broadly
for the FBI, what are the other things you know
that needed to be taken account and done to preserve
(20:44):
the integrity and independence of the FBI. Are we sitting
there facing something where they're going to be a director
from DJ or Secret Service or other agents showing up
and saying Trump has demanded that you produce all of
the case file and you know he wants to write
now and whether legally we could not honor that request
or not, and he's the president, and I think the
(21:06):
sense was, you know we couldn't, Well, we need to
protect this information as best we can.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
When Jim Comey got fired, and we really faced this
idea that there might, in addition to Russian meddling, there
might actually have been instruction of justice going.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
On here in the firing of Jim Comey.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
So at that point we had to open a case
on Trump, a case captioned with Donald Trump's name.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
With the firing of his boss, Andy is now automatically
in the top job as the acting director of the FBI.
The very first night he has called into the Oval
office for a meeting with the president.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
It's an audition.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
He called over and asked me to come meet with
him that night. So I went over and when I
walked in the room, he stands out from behind the
resolute desk, comes over, shake your hand, and just starts
He just kind of like stream of consciousness machine gun,
just starts going.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
It's almost hard to follow.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I've experienced those streams of consciousness, and yeah, they're really
hard to follow.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
And at the end of this little diatribe, he said,
I understand you are part of the resistance.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I was like, I said to him, I'm sorry, I
don't know what you mean.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And he said, well, I understand I've been told that
you didn't like Jim Comy, and you didn't approve of
the decisions he made in that Clinton case, and that
you know, and.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
That was the offer. Really, that was the like whose
team are you on here?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I'll create this false scenario that that's the direction you're leaning.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
You just need to confirm it.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
The President is offering Andy, who he assumes is grateful
for this promotion, a chance to demonstrate his loyalty by
bashing his old boss, Jim Comy.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
And I said, no, that's not true. I worked very
closely with Jim. I respect him. I was a part
of those sessions. I said.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
I didn't agree with all of them. I respect those
differences of opinion, but I was a.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Part of that case, and I think very highly of
Jim Comy. And I remember he just kind of looked
at me like what, like he couldn't believe it, and
then he just went on to something else.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Next day he calls up.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Ass come back in the afternoon to talk about something else,
and went over there and he asked me who I
voted for.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
And that's when Andy says he didn't even vote. So
he's clearly not a political animal, or in this moment
he would be playing his cards a little bit better,
and he's clearly not much of a climber, because this
is not how you get past acting director status and
win the full time job. He's just a twenty year
veteran of the FBI, and to him, none of this
(23:47):
is normal. But things get even crazier as reasons start
to swirl for why Comy was fired. Andrea Bernstein is
a Peabody Award winning journalist and host of Pro Publica's podcast,
Trump Inc. She points out that at first, the administration
tried to establish a semi plausible story for why FBI
(24:08):
Director James Comy had suddenly gotten the axe.
Speaker 12 (24:12):
They tried out this memo from Rod Rosenstein that says
it's because of the way he handled the Hillary Clinton investigation.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
In other words, this is payback against Komy for dismissing
the Clinton case without criminal charges in the summer of
twenty sixteen.
Speaker 12 (24:28):
And then after all of this, Trump comes out and
says it was because of Russia and he wanted to
get the load off his mind.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
With admirably few filters, the President himself goes with the truth.
Two days after Comy is fired, Donald Trump goes on
NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, the anchor, seems completely
dumbstruck by the scoop. The President hurls in his lap.
Speaker 9 (24:52):
What I did is I was going to fire Homy.
Speaker 12 (24:56):
My decision.
Speaker 11 (24:57):
It was not you had made the decision before they came.
Speaker 13 (24:59):
I going to fire Komi. When I decided to just
do it, I said to myself, I said, you know,
this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made
up story. It's an excuse by the Democrats for having
lost an election. He's a show vote, he's a grand stander.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
So after his Attorney general tries to make it look
like Comy was fired for professional misconduct by DOJ leaders,
Trump slips the truth. He fired Comy, and he fired
him because he was mad that the FBI was investigating
his administration and it's suspicious communications with Russia. The president
(25:39):
seems to think that talking about it on national television
is a good way to make it all go away,
but it doesn't play out like that.
Speaker 11 (25:48):
Late today, the Department of Justice announced it will appoint
a former FBI director, Robert Muller, as an independent special
counsel to investigate the Trump administration and allegations of Russian
interference with the presidential election.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
CBS News reported on the most recent escalation. Now the
president is facing a possible obstruction of justice investigation in
addition to the existing probe, So the Department of Justice
decides to appoint a special prosecutor, ramping things up dramatically.
But the media isn't aware of everything it took to
(26:28):
get there, because back at the Justice Department, Andy McCabe
had been putting a full court press on the Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
The course of these conversations. It took place maybe over
a week in May. I can kind of very intentionally
continued to increase the pressure on him around making that
decision and telling him that I was going to go
to Congress and brief the Gang of Eight on the
case that we'd opened. Was a way to like really
draw the issue to a head. And you know, to
(26:58):
his credit, he did decide to bring in the special counsel.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Rosenstein had been reluctant to appoint a special counsel, but
he caves when Andy suggests they need to inform the
Gang of Eight about their concerns. The group of the
most senior members of Congress from both sides of the
aisle who get briefed on sensitive intelligence. The issue is
becoming so serious they need to bring in an independent prosecutor. Now,
(27:24):
Rosenstein is all in.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I know for a fact that he felt very strongly
about the fact that there might have been obstruction to
justice involved here and that we needed to do something
to collect evidence of that. That's why he volunteered to
wear a wire into the Oval office.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Hold on a second, what the deputy attorney general offers
to wear a wire to a meeting with the president
like out of a Martin Scorsese movie Andrea Bernstein.
Speaker 12 (27:50):
Again, Trump thinks, Okay, he's sent the signal, he's fired
the guy, which means the next guy is going to
count out because the next guy doesn't want to be
fired Offso I think this was sort of the fundamental
misunderstandings of Trump was that, you know, this wasn't the apprentice,
This wasn't a situation where people wanted to be the
apprentice to make it to the end that there were
(28:10):
things to people worse than being fired Miles.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I knew at that point that my role in opening
that case and pushing for the Special Council, and there's
no way that wasn't going to get back to Trump.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
And that was it. I knew it was just a
matter of time.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
It's summer of twenty seventeen and Special Counsel Robert Moller's
investigation is underway, convening grand juries, asking hard questions to
the investigators. This is a really serious case and to Trump,
they are, of course a big thorn in his side.
By the way, the President is aware that his Act
(29:00):
ten FBI director is behind it. And in case it
wasn't clear after that performance in the Oval office, Andy
does not get the top director job.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I didn't know how, when or where, but I knew
that Trump would be gunning for me, and sure enough,
I would consistently get like these unsolicited reports from people
about horrible things that Trump had said about me, and
their plans to get me and to fire me and
get rid of me and all this stuff. You know,
my daughter, she used to rib me when I was
(29:31):
acting director. I would come home and she would say,
did you get fired today?
Speaker 3 (29:36):
And I'd say, not yet, but tomorrow's a new day.
Speaker 7 (29:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
We kind of joke about it.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
I was actually laying the groundwork with them. It got
so intense. At one point I started like talking to
a lawyer who I was just like, I don't know
what to do. I feel like something terrible could be
coming in terms of my employment, in terms of my career,
and I'm just not I'd never confronted a situation like this.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I remember this point in the administration because that's when
it became clear to the President that the Justice Department
and the FBI and these other law enforcement agencies are
clearly not there to serve his political agenda. And he's
pretty unhappy about that. So that's when he starts to
turn on them, making them the enemy, and they know it.
Peter Strock remembers.
Speaker 7 (30:27):
People are operating with a little sleep, and you know,
you're eating like shit because you don't have time to eat,
so eating granola bar, some you know, stupid candy bar
from the vending machine, and it just all of that
compounds the pressure.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Andy is almost up for retirement, so he decides to
stay on just long enough to help the new FBI
director get settled into the building. But he's looking out
at the calendar. At March eighteenth, twenty eighteen, that's the
day when he will officially qualify for his pension.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
During my own interview for the director's job. I was
interviewed by the AG and dag Rosenstein, and then of
course interviewed by Trump, and I was very clear to
all of them that I did not intend to stay
past my retirement eligibility.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
So it's near the end of twenty seventeen, the holidays
and after the year from hell, Andy's looking forward to
a relaxing break with his family.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
My wife's family was meeting actually in London for Christmas,
so we thought that sounds great.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Let's get out.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Of here for a week or so and just take
the kids on a vacation and kind of put the
whole thing behind us, at least temporarily. And I had
been very clear with the new director, Christopher Ray, told
him on day one what my plan was to leave.
In March of twenty eighteen, there were like articles in
(31:51):
the Washington Post about the fact that I was planning
to retire by then. That same weekend and the Post
ran some sort of article about it. But on December third,
not sure what provoked him on that day, but he
started tweeting about me again, and one of his tweets
he said he was racing me to my retirement like,
could he get me before I could retire?
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
NBC News reported on the relentless barrage of presidential tweets
that were aimed at.
Speaker 14 (32:17):
Andy today on Twitter, the president taunting Deputy Director Andrew
McCabe top ally of Fire Director James Comey racing the
clock to retire with full benefits ninety days to go.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
It was either twenty third or twenty fourth of December,
and my family was just like, Oh my god, what
does that mean?
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Is it gonna happen?
Speaker 12 (32:41):
Now?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
You're getting fired for Christmas.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
I saw one of my in laws and I walked
walked into the room and that person said to me, Oh,
here's mister popular.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
I was just like, Oh, this sucks.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
It was kind of terrifying, be honest, Like, I just
I could see, you know, retirement like two and a
half months away, and I was just like, Wow, am
I gonna make it?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Or am I not?
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Spoiler alert, he doesn't make it. On March sixteenth, twenty eighteen,
just twenty six hours before his scheduled retirement, Andrew McCabe
is fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Speaker 15 (33:25):
Via press release, Jeff Sessions has just fired the former
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, little more than twenty four
hours before McCabe was set to retire after over two
decades as a federal employee. McCabe has become a lightning
rod in political battles like the Russia investigation.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I remember that Friday night when Brian Williams recited the
shocking news in his usual monotone. I was struck by it,
by the pettiness of the decision. When they made the
decision to pull your employment right on the brink of retirement.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
What's the feeling like in that moment. It's just sickening.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
I mean, you feel like you've you know, you've sustained
like a body blow.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
I feel like you've been run over. And to be clear,
like I.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Am very lucky. My wife is a physician. She has
a good job. I knew that we would be fine
and we'd be able to keep the lights on, food
on the table.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
But even so, the.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Pension and the security health insurance, all the stuff that
I've been literally working for for twenty one years, she's
just gotten obliterated in a cloud of like political retribution.
It just didn't even seem possible any kind of like
legitimate career prospects in the private sector just evaporated when
(34:53):
you become like this politically controversial, even though not by
your own decisions or anything.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
You know, the private sector doesn't like controversy.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Attorney General Session's public justification was that Andy had allegedly
misled the Justice Department and investigators when they asked him
if he provided information to a journalist back in October
twenty sixteen about the Clinton investigation. Now, Andy had confirmed
the investigation to a reporter without approval, and later he
(35:25):
denied authorizing the release of that information. He claimed that
he hadn't lied to investigators, he was just confused about
what they were asking. Andy messed up, no question, but
a fireable offense. Not usually. This was about sending a message.
Andrea Bernstein again.
Speaker 12 (35:43):
The message is if you are disloyal, if you speak out,
you will pay. I think this goes to the question
of speaking out. People were afraid. People said that they
had seen friends, associates ruined by Donald Trump, or they
just didn't want to have to deal with it because
they saw what would come.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
A couple of months after McCabe is fired, Agent Peter Strock,
who's also been working on the Special Council investigation gets
the boot. Notionally, it's because the FBI discovered hundreds of
text messages between Peter and an FBI lawyer, Lisa Page.
They were romantically involved and apparently had made negative comments
about Trump, which creates the appearance of bias. An internal
(36:25):
disciplinary office recommends the agent be suspended for sixty days
and face an emotion. Instead, he's fired. Trump's former chief
of staff and my former boss, John Kelly, later revealed
that Trump had been fixated on Strock. Shut up and
(36:50):
move on. That's the FBI way, rather than fighting in
the political muck. But once you're out of the bureau,
you can tell your side of the story, and you
can also shine a light. In February twenty nineteen, Saint
Martin's Press publishes Andy's tell all book, The Threat, How
the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump.
(37:13):
You might call this whistleblowing through a book deal, and
that might seem cynical or maybe less courageous. But by
writing this book, Andy chooses to throw himself back into
the very public crosshairs he was trying to escape. It
makes him toxic to future employers. It's a total bridge burner,
Andy does.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
It anyway, forget about me. It's important that people know
actually what happened and can see from the inside, like
what it's like when you're a career, lifetime government servant
and you stumble into the crosshairs of not just politics,
but politics that are being driven by a vindictive, small minded,
(37:55):
cruel president who has no concern for the rule of law,
for the health and welfare of our democracy, for the
institutions we rely on to keep this country moving. And
this is what it's like when the president decides he
wants to destroy you.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
The president offers his own review.
Speaker 13 (38:17):
Well, I think Andrew McCabe has made a fool out
of himself. He really looks to me like sort of
a poor man's j Edgar Hoover's.
Speaker 9 (38:24):
I think he's a disaster.
Speaker 13 (38:25):
He is a disgraced man. He was terminated not by me,
he was terminated by others. This man is a complete disaster,
Thank you all very much.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
At times was like absolutely unnerving when he was asked
by a reporter we accused us all of treason, and
has pointed out to him that people who commit treason
are put to death.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
And he's like, yeah, I know.
Speaker 13 (38:48):
You look at Komy, if you look at McCabe, if
you look at Struck, if you look at his lover,
Lisa Page, that's treason.
Speaker 5 (38:56):
That's treason.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
For Andy.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Probably the hardest part, if we have to pick just one,
is the effect all of this had on his family.
He's raising two high school teenagers who have to see
their father fired and publicly humiliated. And then there's Jill,
his wife.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
I remember when he was at the infamous meeting with
Putin where he said all those creditly stupid things about
not believing US intelligence and.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Believing Putin instead. He also in that press conference he
used to brought up my wife again.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
She told me later she was driving home from a
meeting at another hospital and was like on the highway
listening to like NPR the coverage of the of the
press conference, and then she heard him ranting about her,
and it's just destroyed her. He just started crying, like
driving in the car, like oh my god, oh my god,
it's never gonna go away, it's never gonna stop. So
there's moments like that that just like leave.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
A stain on you know, you can't get rid of it.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
But there's also the bigger picture. By sacking uncooperative people
that's supposedly a political places like the FBI and the
Justice Department, the administration seemed to be testing their foundations
and trying to get rid of people who were listening
to the whistleblowers. Here's Peter Strock.
Speaker 7 (40:20):
I do worry, certainly to the extent that it has
a even a subconscious chilling effect on what the organization
or individual agents and analysts are willing to do that
might cause them to incur the political wrath of Trump
or those around him. And that's the sort of concern
I have about the subconscious impact of if an organization
(40:41):
places its survival is such a high priority that risk
aversion seeps in.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Journalist Peter Baker has a different take.
Speaker 6 (40:50):
One of the most important days of his whole presence.
He was January third, twenty twenty one, three days before
January sixth, when he's trying a strong arm They made
er of the Justice Department to come out and endorse
his fictional account of a stolen election. And here are
all these guys who work for him, wanted to work
for him, asked the jobs to work for him, sitting
(41:11):
in the Oval Office saying we're not going to do that.
He's trying to force the Justice Department to basically help
him steal power, stay in power without this consent of
the governor, and they stood up to him. And it's
just boy, we talk about institutions and what I came
out away from this list? Yeah, institutions hell, but they're
really about individual people.
Speaker 16 (41:39):
Social media is absolutely flooded today with threatening posts in
the wake of the FBI searching Mara a Lago, supporters
writing things like lock and load, when does the shooting start?
And they will cry out in authentic pain soon.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
On MSNBC, the anchor is clearly rattled by violent threats
against the FBI following the bureau's search a former President
Trump's residence in mar Lago, Florida in August twenty twenty two.
The National Archives had been trying to retrieve classified documents
that the former president had taken from the White House.
The FBI obtained a search warrant and had finally taken
(42:17):
this unprecedented step, no doubt knowing the political firestorm that
would come their way. The former president responds to the
threats of violence by fanning the flames.
Speaker 5 (42:27):
The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters
controlled by radical left.
Speaker 13 (42:34):
Scoundrels, lawyers, and the media.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
Who tell them what to do, you people right there,
and when.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
To do it.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Two days after the FBI raid, an armed man in
body armor with an AR fifteen and a nail gun
is shot by police as he tries to breach the
FBI's Cincinnati field office. Social media posts by the attacker
encourage others to shoot agh on site. Andy McCabe I.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Had hoped, probably naively, that those sort of attacks on
the FBI were limited to myself and Jim Comey and
the others who worked with us on the rush At
case and the Clinton case. Most people in the FBI
saw it that way as well. The turning point has
been mar A Lago and the immediate reflexive action of
(43:25):
you know, Team Trump to attack the FBI agents who
executed a lawfully authorized search warrant. These allegations at FBI
agents have been planting evidence in mar A Lago and
all kinds of other stuff that's had an incredibly shocking
impact on people in the bureau.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Still, the FBI's decision to go ahead with that raid
says something. The chilling effect that Peter worries about didn't
seem to keep the FBI from ultimately doing their jobs,
whatever the political fallout, It's just that now the stakes
seem a lot higher.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
Every time someone in American political leadership goes on television
and attacks the FBI, they are undermining the public's confidence
in the work that the FBI does, and that ultimately
makes us all less safe.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
And speaking of death and taxes, the year after Trump
left office, the New York Times broke the news that
in twenty seventeen, out of one hundred and fifty three
million individual tax returns filed that year, two notable individuals
had been selected for a randomized audit. Their names James
(44:42):
Comy and Andrew McCabe. Like the FBI, the IRS is
supposed to be a completely a political arm of government,
but former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly later
told reporters that someone had specifically asked him to order
IRS investigation into those men, Donald J.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
Trump.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Kelly didn't follow through on the request, but after he
left the audits happened anyway. By the way, it's a
violation of federal law to request directly or indirectly that
the IRS investigate a specific taxpayer. That prohibition applies to
any executive branch employee, including the President of the United States.
(45:39):
Next time on The Whistleblowers. When Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vinman
was a young immigrant from Ukraine, his father told him
that in America, unlike Russia, you can speak truth to
power without being sent to a gulag. But when Alex
lands in his dream job at the White House, he
iscovers that with this administration, that's not exactly the case.
(46:21):
The Whistleblowers is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership
with Best Case Studios and ARC Media. It was hosted
by me Miles Taylor and written by me Isabel Evans
and Adam Pinkis. Isabel Evans is also our producer. Associate
producers are Hannah Leebelwoods Lockhart, and Ashley Warren. Darcy Peakele
is consulting producer. Zach Herman is the VP of Development
(46:42):
of ARC Media. This episode was edited by Daniel Tuik
with assistants from Max Michael Miller. Original music is by
James Newberry. Executive producers are Me Miles Taylor, Adam Pinkis
for Best Case Studios and Barrick Goodman for ARC Media.
Beth Ann Mcaluso is our executive producer for iHeartMedia, along
with Allie. Special thanks to Kevin Famm, all of our
(47:02):
contributors and interviewees, and our intern an eleven and a
big thanks to the teams at Government Accountability Project and
Whistleblower Aid, two of the best organizations for government and
private sector whistleblowers seeking legal support. Follow and rate the
Whistleblowers on the podcast site of your choice to hear
what these whistleblowers and others have to say about what
(47:23):
they believe will happen under a second Trump administration or
in the White House of AMaGA successor. You can pick
up my new book, Blowback from Simon and Schuster
He asked me who I voted for, and I was like,
so stunned. I you know, federal government, that's like election
one on one, you're not supposed to ask the people
who work for you who they vote for.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
That's Andrew McCabe, former acting director of the FBI. Emphasis
on acting because mckab is describing what's essentially a job
interview with his new boss, President Donald J.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Trump.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
So the next time I went in, I said, I
decided that because the work that we were doing had
become so politically tinged, I didn't think it.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Was a good idea for me to vote for anyone.
So I didn't vote. Look, he looked at like, what
is wrong with you?
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Why would you lead off a job interview by saying
I didn't vote for you?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
In case it wasn't clear from that story, Andrew McCabe,
or Andy as most people call him, doesn't really have
the right temperament. Let's say, for this new president. What's more,
Andy in this moment and for the next few years,
is focused on preserving this idea about his position and
the position of the FBI itself when it comes to politics,
(01:09):
and that is stay out of it. But as he's
about to find out in this administration, politics are as
inevitable as death and taxes. I'm Miles Taylor, and this
is the Whistleblowers On this show. We're going deep into
the heart of power to meet people who spoke out
(01:30):
about wrongdoing from inside the Trump administration. Some were in
the President's inner circle, others were on the front lines
of top agencies. But they all have a few things
in common, the ethical gray areas, the doubts about whether
what they did even made an impact, and they paid
a price. As a leader at the FBI, Andy's very
(01:54):
job was to be almost like an umpire of whistleblowing.
He reviewed the most serious complaints of wrongdoing across the
country and decided what merited investigation. But when the thing
that merits investigation is what's happening in the White House,
that's when it gets complicated. Episode three in Justice.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
We kind of felt like this is gonna be terrible
for us.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
It's summer twenty sixteen, the presidential campaign is in full swing,
and the FBI has an issue. Andy McCabe had worked
on some pretty tricky cases in the twenty years that
he was with the bureau. Russian mobsters in New York,
the Boston Marathon bombing, the twenty twelve attack on the
(02:56):
US embassy in Benghazi. In fact, that Benghazi case had
been very political. A group of House Republicans held multiple
hearings about it literally for years, focused on how Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton could have done more to prevent
the attack. Even so, this moment in July of twenty
(03:17):
sixteen was trickier. On July fifth, Andy's boss, FBI Director
James Comy, announced that, following a thorough investigation, the Bureau
would not be recommending charges against then candidate Clinton for
the use of a private email server while she was
(03:37):
at the State Department.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
We cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal
charges on these facts. Although we did not find clear
evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate
laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence
that they were extremely careless.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
You can hear Comy working really hard for balance here.
There's no clear evidence that anyone intended to break the law,
though clearly people screwed up. But for all of that
effort on Comey's part to stay above the political fray,
everyone is furious with him. GOP mainstay, Jim Jordan goes
on Fox News to complain bitterly. I might add that
(04:21):
no charges are being brought against Clinton.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Well, if she takes it seriously, how did she not
even know that's c STID for classification, you know, something
as classified versus just a letter in the alphabet.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
I mean, come on, everyone knows she didn't take it
that seriously. We know that's not true. And Hillary Clinton
and the Democrats are just as mad about that comment
that she and her staff had been quote, extremely careless.
It's like an indictment of her judgment. And right in
the middle of the campaign. It's a damned if you
do moment for the FBI, and Andy as Deputy director
(04:55):
is in the thick of.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
It wherever one was going to be a really strained,
uncomfortable position for us. If Hillary Clinton won the presidency,
which seemed to be the majority of predictions at that point,
we would be then working for a president who we'd
investigated in a high profile case. We thought that we'd
have a really hard time building the level of trust
(05:16):
that the FBI needs to have from the president that
we ultimately work for. So we thought that could be
really challenging.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
But the FBI can't make decisions about what to investigate
and what not to investigate just because there might be
political blowback. In a case like this, politics was almost inevitable.
In fact, the bureau they expected it.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Is simply an investigation of whether or not classified material
had been traversed unauthorized network, but the impact of it
because the people were political figures. Everyone was standing on
the sidelines cheering for one result or another. That politicizes
the effect of your work has a great impact on politics,
even if that's not your intention.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
But there are two things the FBI does not expect.
One that right after closing the investigation into Clinton's email
server in July twenty sixteen, like literally three weeks after,
they'll have to open a new case, this time into
the other campaign, the Trump campaign. The subject the campaign's
(06:23):
links to Russia and attempts from Moscow to interfere in
the election. The FBI gets a tip that someone in
the Trump campaign might have had advanced knowledge of the
Russians plans to hack and then leak emails from the
Democratic National Committee and as well as people and the
Clinton campaign. The investigation is dubbed Crossfire Hurricane. Here's Andy, you.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Don't open an investigation because you know what happened.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
You have information that a threat to national security exists,
or that a federal law, criminal law may have been violated,
and you investigate to shed light on that and to
reveal the truth.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Coming right on the heels of the whole Clinton email uproar,
the FBI is well aware of what they're walking into.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Having been kind of burned, you know, by the Clinton experience.
We went into it eyes open, realizing that this will
be uncomfortable, This could impose great stress on the organization.
But you don't refuse to investigate because you're afraid of
political backlash. That would be capitulating to politics, and that's
(07:30):
not something that FBI people do.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
It was a weekend, like a Sunday.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I think we're on our way to an event with
our daughter, and I got a phone call from a
Washington number.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
We got contacted by.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Devlin Barrett, who was then working for the Wall Street Journal,
and he wanted to comment on this story that he
was writing about this allegation that my wife had run
for office in virgin for Virginia State Senate in twenty fifteen.
While I was working at the Washington Field office and
she lost. She ran as a Democrat and lost in
(08:08):
November twenty fifteen, and she was supported in her campaign
by the then governor, Terry mccauliff. And Barrett was making
this connection because Terry mccauliffe was a friend of the Clintons,
that my wife had taken this money and we had
somehow profited from the Clintons.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
The Wall Street Journal story goes viral and gets major
play across all the networks.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
It was, you know, suggesting there was some sort of political.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Corruption or payoff here, which is preposterous. I remember how
hard she worked in that campaign. I had nothing to
do with it, and anyone can look in the Virginia
campaign database and see exactly how every dollar was spent.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
And it was just so offensive.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
So the second thing they don't expect is personal attacks
on the agents working the new investigation. By October twenty sixteen,
Trump has zeroed in on the deputy director as a
worthy target.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
It was just learned a little while ago that one
of the closest people to Hillary Clinton, with long standing
ties to her and her husband, gave more than six
hundred and seventy five thousand dollars to the campaign of
the spouse of a top FBI official, his wife who
(09:31):
helped oversee the investigation into missus Clinton's illegal email server.
No wonder they found nothing wrong. How does that look?
How does that look so dishonest?
Speaker 1 (09:53):
That article led to Trump's attacks on us in his
campaign rallies. It was just infuriating to this day, Like
even when reporters still write about this stuff, they throw
the allegation out there, and it's like, it's still insulting
and infuriating to me when people talk about that. But
she is a great supporter of my career and a
(10:13):
wonderful FBI wife, and she didn't get involved in, you know,
going out publicly and attacking Donald Trump or defending herself.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
She did what we had to do at.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
The time, which was just shut up and move on.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Shut up and move on. At the FBI, that's essentially
standard operating procedure.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
You don't get.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Involved in these sort of tawdry political jousting matches on
social media when you are a high level official in
the FBI.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
I just don't do it.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Peter Baker is the senior White House correspondent for The
New York Times. I asked him if he thought there
was a kind of fundamental disconnect to how incoming president
Trump saw the Justice Department and the FBI, at least
as Watergate.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
The idea is the Justice Department was supposed to be
a political deliverer of justice is not supposed to be
the political instrument or tool or weapon of a president.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
But he saw it that way.
Speaker 6 (11:10):
That's the way he saw everything, but in particular the
Justice Department. And he said it was remarkable about Trump
is he didn't even try to hide it. Nixon at
least knew that he was supposed to hide it.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
By late twenty sixteen and early twenty seventeen, the relationship
between the incoming president and the DOJ was headed south,
and the investigation into Russia's involvement in the election was
a little more than a sore spot.
Speaker 6 (11:35):
So from the very beginning it was a sour thing.
And this conclusion that they had that they were very
firm on that Russia had interfered in the election for
the specific purpose of helping Trump undermine his conception of
his own presidency. He thought they were basically telling the
country he didn't win fair and square, and so therefore
he was completely unwilling to even listen anything they had
(11:57):
to say, even if they weren't questioning his victory.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Saw it that way.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
By the way, if it feels like we're talking a
lot about Russia on this show, it's because the country
came up in many of the whistleblower complaints and investigations
during the Trump presidency. More specifically, the White House's interactions
with Moscow set off alarm bells all across the administration,
from the outer reaches of the NSA where Reality Winner
(12:24):
worked to the president's inner circle. Okay, so Peter Strock
as a former FBI agent who worked across the Russia investigation.
He'd been at the Bureau for twenty two years, specializing
in counterintelligence before landing on Crossfire Hurricane. I asked him
about those early days of the new administration and if
(12:46):
anything felt different this time compared to what he'd seen
in the past.
Speaker 7 (12:50):
I started out, you know, Bill Clinton was the president,
that we had two Bush administrations to Obama administrations, then
finally Trump new administrations would come in, and you could
see foreign nations sort of adjusting and saying, who are
going to be the people who have influenced trying to
figure out who their contacts are, trying to get people
into that process so they could get information. But what
was curious about Trump was and you had a disproportionately
(13:13):
large number of people that had not been in government before,
certainly at that level, and so everybody was trying to
figure out who the heck are these people and how
do we influence them.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Meanwhile, over the months of November and December twenty sixteen,
the FBI was picking up signals that were alarming.
Speaker 7 (13:29):
The FBI was watching the Russian Intelligence Services, and in
the context of watching the Russian Intelligence Services, saw all
of this interaction with people who suddenly became to be
associated with the Trump campaign and later the Trump administration
up to it, including Trump himself.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
The FBI follows these leads and narrows in on a
handful of key players. Andy McKay.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Again, our investigation focused very specifically on individuals who we
knew prior to the campaign had magnificant contacts with Russians.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
And it's well known now.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Those four people were Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Mike Flynn,
and of course Paul Metaphort. They were all involved in
the campaign. They all have these historical connections with Russians.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Naturally, the bureau briefs the White House on what they're seeing.
It's only the first few months into the president's term,
and the US intelligence community is churning out these urgent
bulletins that a foreign adversary is trying to manipulate the
American political system. But at the White House there's a
bizarre lack of interest in the topic, almost like an
(14:36):
aversion to it. And for a veteran investigator like Andy,
this starts to raise some flags.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Why would someone not take this seriously, especially after we've
sat down, send our experts in there to talk to him,
you know, expressly about this threat.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
It just never lined up.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Seems to be oblivious or dismissive of the Russian spread,
which is just odd. I mean, it sticks in your
mind as an investigator trying to sort all this out.
Speaker 7 (15:09):
Peter Strock again, at the end of the day, the
FBI's job is to protect Trump, to protect the presidency.
To sit there and say, we want to create an
environment where as best you can, you can act to
protect the national security of the United States too advanced
national security interests without undo influencer penetrations or any foreign nation,
and that was concerning and never see anything like in
(15:30):
my career. Like everybody we started looking at, you lift
up those rocks and it's a disaster underneath, and it
just keeps getting worse and worse.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
One of those people the FBI was looking at was
General Mike Flynn. Now, this is Trump's pick to be
National Security Advisor. In December of twenty sixteen, while the
FBI is conducting routine surveillance of Russian foreign agents, the
bureau picks up on a conversation between Flynn, who's just
a member of the Trump transition team, point and the
(16:01):
Russian ambassador. In that conversation, they talk about sanctions the
Obama administration is imposing because of Russian interference in the election.
Now it's a sensitive national security issue, not something you're
supposed to talk about in unofficial channels before a new
administration is sworn in. And what's worse, when the FBI
(16:21):
asks Flynn about it, he just lies. Flynn lasts twenty
four days as National Security Advisor before Trump, bowing to pressure,
ends up asking him to resign. Ari Mehlberg on his
show on MSNBC is quick to point out this isn't
just a political thing. It's illegal.
Speaker 8 (16:44):
Tonight, officials say Michael Flynn lied to the FBI. That
could cost him a lot more than a job. It
can land you in jail. Flynn denied to FBI agents
he discussed US sanctions against Russia with that country's ambassador
before President Trump took office, contradicting the contents of intercepted
communications collected by intelligence agencies.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
The President is outspoken in his support but not of
the FBI or the rule of law, but of Flynn.
Speaker 9 (17:15):
Michael Flynn, General Flynn is a wonderful man. I think
he's been treated very, very unfairly by the media, as
I call it, the fake media. In many cases. I
think it's really a sad thing that he was treated
so badly, and people are trying to cover up for
a terrible loss that the Democrats had under Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
So none of this is making the bureau especially popular
with the new president. But making people happy is not
their job, and by making comments like this, the president
just draws more attention to the fact that he seems
to want to sweep this whole issue under the rug.
So Andy does what he's always done.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I just keep my head down do my job and
show up every day. That was just kind of like
a perseverance thing.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, maybe that'll work, but given who Andy is dealing
with in the White House, not so much. May ninth,
twenty seventeen, this is when everything changed. Andy is in
the middle of a very busy day.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I'm told by my staff that the Attorney General turned
General Sessions wants to talk to me. I come out,
assuming he's on the phone. They were like, no, he's
not on the phone. He wants you to come over
and see him. And so I knew, like, ooh, this
is not gonna be good.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
So I grabbed my lock bag and a notebook.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
I had one security guy then as deputy, and we
walked across the street and there were As I got
to the corner, I saw there were news trucks in
front of the FBI building, which seemed odd to me.
I didn't I wasn't aware of anything newsworthy that was
going on.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
But something newsworthy was going on.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
And I walked over there, waited for a few minutes,
went into the Attorney General's office.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
So I walked in.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
And the Ag was standing in front of me, just
to the left of his desk, standing up very stiffly.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
With his coat on, which I thought was odd.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
And to my right was Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, also
standing very stiffly with his coat on. And I crossed
the room to shake the AG's hand, and he said,
I don't know if you've heard, but we've had to
fire the director of the FBI.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
We've had to fire the director of the FBI.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
And I mean, you know, you could have just knocked
me down with one finger. I was like stunned, and
I just said to him, no, I didn't hear that.
Speaker 10 (19:33):
What a stunning decision from President Trump, firing FBI Director
James Colly only the second time in American history a
president has taken that step. The decision took Comy by surprise.
He found out from TV on a recruiting trip to
Los Angeles. He thought it was a joke.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
On Good Morning America, anchor George Stephanopoulos delivers the shocking
news of James Comy's firing. The sudden dismissal of Comy
hits Andy hard. But there's something else that he's struck by.
Speaker 11 (20:01):
Two.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
One of my first concerns was that our investigation might
be shut down and we wanted to make sure that
our documents were absolutely all in line.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Not only has his boss been sacked, but Andy and
the FBI are worried the firing might be an attempt
to obstruct their investigation. Here's Peter Strock.
Speaker 7 (20:22):
There was an extraordinary sense of uncertainty about what was coming.
And I remember that, you know, the night or the
second nine after coming was fired, essentially staying there all
night figuring out, Okay, what are the next moves? And
a huge part of that concerned the investigations in and
around Trump that were going on, but also more broadly
for the FBI, what are the other things you know
that needed to be taken account and done to preserve
(20:44):
the integrity and independence of the FBI. Are we sitting
there facing something where they're going to be a director
from DJ or Secret Service or other agents showing up
and saying Trump has demanded that you produce all of
the case file and you know he wants to write
now and whether legally we could not honor that request
or not, and he's the president, and I think the
(21:06):
sense was, you know we couldn't, Well, we need to
protect this information as best we can.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
When Jim Comey got fired, and we really faced this
idea that there might, in addition to Russian meddling, there
might actually have been instruction of justice going.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
On here in the firing of Jim Comey.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
So at that point we had to open a case
on Trump, a case captioned with Donald Trump's name.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
With the firing of his boss, Andy is now automatically
in the top job as the acting director of the FBI.
The very first night he has called into the Oval
office for a meeting with the president.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
It's an audition.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
He called over and asked me to come meet with
him that night. So I went over and when I
walked in the room, he stands out from behind the
resolute desk, comes over, shake your hand, and just starts
He just kind of like stream of consciousness machine gun,
just starts going.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
It's almost hard to follow.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I've experienced those streams of consciousness, and yeah, they're really
hard to follow.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
And at the end of this little diatribe, he said,
I understand you are part of the resistance.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I was like, I said to him, I'm sorry, I
don't know what you mean.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And he said, well, I understand I've been told that
you didn't like Jim Comy, and you didn't approve of
the decisions he made in that Clinton case, and that
you know, and.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
That was the offer. Really, that was the like whose
team are you on here?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
I'll create this false scenario that that's the direction you're leaning.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
You just need to confirm it.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
The President is offering Andy, who he assumes is grateful
for this promotion, a chance to demonstrate his loyalty by
bashing his old boss, Jim Comy.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
And I said, no, that's not true. I worked very
closely with Jim. I respect him. I was a part
of those sessions. I said.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
I didn't agree with all of them. I respect those
differences of opinion, but I was a.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
Part of that case, and I think very highly of
Jim Comy. And I remember he just kind of looked
at me like what, like he couldn't believe it, and
then he just went on to something else.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Next day he calls up.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Ass come back in the afternoon to talk about something else,
and went over there and he asked me who I
voted for.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
And that's when Andy says he didn't even vote. So
he's clearly not a political animal, or in this moment
he would be playing his cards a little bit better,
and he's clearly not much of a climber, because this
is not how you get past acting director status and
win the full time job. He's just a twenty year
veteran of the FBI, and to him, none of this
(23:47):
is normal. But things get even crazier as reasons start
to swirl for why Comy was fired. Andrea Bernstein is
a Peabody Award winning journalist and host of Pro Publica's podcast,
Trump Inc. She points out that at first, the administration
tried to establish a semi plausible story for why FBI
(24:08):
Director James Comy had suddenly gotten the axe.
Speaker 12 (24:12):
They tried out this memo from Rod Rosenstein that says
it's because of the way he handled the Hillary Clinton investigation.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
In other words, this is payback against Komy for dismissing
the Clinton case without criminal charges in the summer of
twenty sixteen.
Speaker 12 (24:28):
And then after all of this, Trump comes out and
says it was because of Russia and he wanted to
get the load off his mind.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
With admirably few filters, the President himself goes with the truth.
Two days after Comy is fired, Donald Trump goes on
NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, the anchor, seems completely
dumbstruck by the scoop. The President hurls in his lap.
Speaker 9 (24:52):
What I did is I was going to fire Homy.
Speaker 12 (24:56):
My decision.
Speaker 11 (24:57):
It was not you had made the decision before they came.
Speaker 13 (24:59):
I going to fire Komi. When I decided to just
do it, I said to myself, I said, you know,
this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made
up story. It's an excuse by the Democrats for having
lost an election. He's a show vote, he's a grand stander.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
So after his Attorney general tries to make it look
like Comy was fired for professional misconduct by DOJ leaders,
Trump slips the truth. He fired Comy, and he fired
him because he was mad that the FBI was investigating
his administration and it's suspicious communications with Russia. The president
(25:39):
seems to think that talking about it on national television
is a good way to make it all go away,
but it doesn't play out like that.
Speaker 11 (25:48):
Late today, the Department of Justice announced it will appoint
a former FBI director, Robert Muller, as an independent special
counsel to investigate the Trump administration and allegations of Russian
interference with the presidential election.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
CBS News reported on the most recent escalation. Now the
president is facing a possible obstruction of justice investigation in
addition to the existing probe, So the Department of Justice
decides to appoint a special prosecutor, ramping things up dramatically.
But the media isn't aware of everything it took to
(26:28):
get there, because back at the Justice Department, Andy McCabe
had been putting a full court press on the Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
The course of these conversations. It took place maybe over
a week in May. I can kind of very intentionally
continued to increase the pressure on him around making that
decision and telling him that I was going to go
to Congress and brief the Gang of Eight on the
case that we'd opened. Was a way to like really
draw the issue to a head. And you know, to
(26:58):
his credit, he did decide to bring in the special counsel.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
Rosenstein had been reluctant to appoint a special counsel, but
he caves when Andy suggests they need to inform the
Gang of Eight about their concerns. The group of the
most senior members of Congress from both sides of the
aisle who get briefed on sensitive intelligence. The issue is
becoming so serious they need to bring in an independent prosecutor. Now,
(27:24):
Rosenstein is all in.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I know for a fact that he felt very strongly
about the fact that there might have been obstruction to
justice involved here and that we needed to do something
to collect evidence of that. That's why he volunteered to
wear a wire into the Oval office.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Hold on a second, what the deputy attorney general offers
to wear a wire to a meeting with the president
like out of a Martin Scorsese movie Andrea Bernstein.
Speaker 12 (27:50):
Again, Trump thinks, Okay, he's sent the signal, he's fired
the guy, which means the next guy is going to
count out because the next guy doesn't want to be
fired Offso I think this was sort of the fundamental
misunderstandings of Trump was that, you know, this wasn't the apprentice,
This wasn't a situation where people wanted to be the
apprentice to make it to the end that there were
(28:10):
things to people worse than being fired Miles.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
I knew at that point that my role in opening
that case and pushing for the Special Council, and there's
no way that wasn't going to get back to Trump.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
And that was it. I knew it was just a
matter of time.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
It's summer of twenty seventeen and Special Counsel Robert Moller's
investigation is underway, convening grand juries, asking hard questions to
the investigators. This is a really serious case and to Trump,
they are, of course a big thorn in his side.
By the way, the President is aware that his Act
(29:00):
ten FBI director is behind it. And in case it
wasn't clear after that performance in the Oval office, Andy
does not get the top director job.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
I didn't know how, when or where, but I knew
that Trump would be gunning for me, and sure enough,
I would consistently get like these unsolicited reports from people
about horrible things that Trump had said about me, and
their plans to get me and to fire me and
get rid of me and all this stuff. You know,
my daughter, she used to rib me when I was
(29:31):
acting director. I would come home and she would say,
did you get fired today?
Speaker 3 (29:36):
And I'd say, not yet, but tomorrow's a new day.
Speaker 7 (29:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
We kind of joke about it.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
I was actually laying the groundwork with them. It got
so intense. At one point I started like talking to
a lawyer who I was just like, I don't know
what to do. I feel like something terrible could be
coming in terms of my employment, in terms of my career,
and I'm just not I'd never confronted a situation like this.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I remember this point in the administration because that's when
it became clear to the President that the Justice Department
and the FBI and these other law enforcement agencies are
clearly not there to serve his political agenda. And he's
pretty unhappy about that. So that's when he starts to
turn on them, making them the enemy, and they know it.
Peter Strock remembers.
Speaker 7 (30:27):
People are operating with a little sleep, and you know,
you're eating like shit because you don't have time to eat,
so eating granola bar, some you know, stupid candy bar
from the vending machine, and it just all of that
compounds the pressure.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
Andy is almost up for retirement, so he decides to
stay on just long enough to help the new FBI
director get settled into the building. But he's looking out
at the calendar. At March eighteenth, twenty eighteen, that's the
day when he will officially qualify for his pension.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
During my own interview for the director's job. I was
interviewed by the AG and dag Rosenstein, and then of
course interviewed by Trump, and I was very clear to
all of them that I did not intend to stay
past my retirement eligibility.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
So it's near the end of twenty seventeen, the holidays
and after the year from hell, Andy's looking forward to
a relaxing break with his family.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
My wife's family was meeting actually in London for Christmas,
so we thought that sounds great.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Let's get out.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Of here for a week or so and just take
the kids on a vacation and kind of put the
whole thing behind us, at least temporarily. And I had
been very clear with the new director, Christopher Ray, told
him on day one what my plan was to leave.
In March of twenty eighteen, there were like articles in
(31:51):
the Washington Post about the fact that I was planning
to retire by then. That same weekend and the Post
ran some sort of article about it. But on December third,
not sure what provoked him on that day, but he
started tweeting about me again, and one of his tweets
he said he was racing me to my retirement like,
could he get me before I could retire?
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
NBC News reported on the relentless barrage of presidential tweets
that were aimed at.
Speaker 14 (32:17):
Andy today on Twitter, the president taunting Deputy Director Andrew
McCabe top ally of Fire Director James Comey racing the
clock to retire with full benefits ninety days to go.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
It was either twenty third or twenty fourth of December,
and my family was just like, Oh my god, what
does that mean?
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Is it gonna happen?
Speaker 12 (32:41):
Now?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
You're getting fired for Christmas.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
I saw one of my in laws and I walked
walked into the room and that person said to me, Oh,
here's mister popular.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
I was just like, Oh, this sucks.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
It was kind of terrifying, be honest, Like, I just
I could see, you know, retirement like two and a
half months away, and I was just like, Wow, am
I gonna make it?
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Or am I not?
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Spoiler alert, he doesn't make it. On March sixteenth, twenty eighteen,
just twenty six hours before his scheduled retirement, Andrew McCabe
is fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Speaker 15 (33:25):
Via press release, Jeff Sessions has just fired the former
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, little more than twenty four
hours before McCabe was set to retire after over two
decades as a federal employee. McCabe has become a lightning
rod in political battles like the Russia investigation.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I remember that Friday night when Brian Williams recited the
shocking news in his usual monotone. I was struck by it,
by the pettiness of the decision. When they made the
decision to pull your employment right on the brink of retirement.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
What's the feeling like in that moment. It's just sickening.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
I mean, you feel like you've you know, you've sustained
like a body blow.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
I feel like you've been run over. And to be clear,
like I.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Am very lucky. My wife is a physician. She has
a good job. I knew that we would be fine
and we'd be able to keep the lights on, food
on the table.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
But even so, the.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Pension and the security health insurance, all the stuff that
I've been literally working for for twenty one years, she's
just gotten obliterated in a cloud of like political retribution.
It just didn't even seem possible any kind of like
legitimate career prospects in the private sector just evaporated when
(34:53):
you become like this politically controversial, even though not by
your own decisions or anything.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
You know, the private sector doesn't like controversy.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
Attorney General Session's public justification was that Andy had allegedly
misled the Justice Department and investigators when they asked him
if he provided information to a journalist back in October
twenty sixteen about the Clinton investigation. Now, Andy had confirmed
the investigation to a reporter without approval, and later he
(35:25):
denied authorizing the release of that information. He claimed that
he hadn't lied to investigators, he was just confused about
what they were asking. Andy messed up, no question, but
a fireable offense. Not usually. This was about sending a message.
Andrea Bernstein again.
Speaker 12 (35:43):
The message is if you are disloyal, if you speak out,
you will pay. I think this goes to the question
of speaking out. People were afraid. People said that they
had seen friends, associates ruined by Donald Trump, or they
just didn't want to have to deal with it because
they saw what would come.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
A couple of months after McCabe is fired, Agent Peter Strock,
who's also been working on the Special Council investigation gets
the boot. Notionally, it's because the FBI discovered hundreds of
text messages between Peter and an FBI lawyer, Lisa Page.
They were romantically involved and apparently had made negative comments
about Trump, which creates the appearance of bias. An internal
(36:25):
disciplinary office recommends the agent be suspended for sixty days
and face an emotion. Instead, he's fired. Trump's former chief
of staff and my former boss, John Kelly, later revealed
that Trump had been fixated on Strock. Shut up and
(36:50):
move on. That's the FBI way, rather than fighting in
the political muck. But once you're out of the bureau,
you can tell your side of the story, and you
can also shine a light. In February twenty nineteen, Saint
Martin's Press publishes Andy's tell all book, The Threat, How
the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump.
(37:13):
You might call this whistleblowing through a book deal, and
that might seem cynical or maybe less courageous. But by
writing this book, Andy chooses to throw himself back into
the very public crosshairs he was trying to escape. It
makes him toxic to future employers. It's a total bridge burner,
Andy does.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
It anyway, forget about me. It's important that people know
actually what happened and can see from the inside, like
what it's like when you're a career, lifetime government servant
and you stumble into the crosshairs of not just politics,
but politics that are being driven by a vindictive, small minded,
(37:55):
cruel president who has no concern for the rule of law,
for the health and welfare of our democracy, for the
institutions we rely on to keep this country moving. And
this is what it's like when the president decides he
wants to destroy you.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
The president offers his own review.
Speaker 13 (38:17):
Well, I think Andrew McCabe has made a fool out
of himself. He really looks to me like sort of
a poor man's j Edgar Hoover's.
Speaker 9 (38:24):
I think he's a disaster.
Speaker 13 (38:25):
He is a disgraced man. He was terminated not by me,
he was terminated by others. This man is a complete disaster,
Thank you all very much.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
At times was like absolutely unnerving when he was asked
by a reporter we accused us all of treason, and
has pointed out to him that people who commit treason
are put to death.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
And he's like, yeah, I know.
Speaker 13 (38:48):
You look at Komy, if you look at McCabe, if
you look at Struck, if you look at his lover,
Lisa Page, that's treason.
Speaker 5 (38:56):
That's treason.
Speaker 3 (38:58):
For Andy.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Probably the hardest part, if we have to pick just one,
is the effect all of this had on his family.
He's raising two high school teenagers who have to see
their father fired and publicly humiliated. And then there's Jill,
his wife.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
I remember when he was at the infamous meeting with
Putin where he said all those creditly stupid things about
not believing US intelligence and.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Believing Putin instead. He also in that press conference he
used to brought up my wife again.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
She told me later she was driving home from a
meeting at another hospital and was like on the highway
listening to like NPR the coverage of the of the
press conference, and then she heard him ranting about her,
and it's just destroyed her. He just started crying, like
driving in the car, like oh my god, oh my god,
it's never gonna go away, it's never gonna stop. So
there's moments like that that just like leave.
Speaker 3 (39:57):
A stain on you know, you can't get rid of it.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
But there's also the bigger picture. By sacking uncooperative people
that's supposedly a political places like the FBI and the
Justice Department, the administration seemed to be testing their foundations
and trying to get rid of people who were listening
to the whistleblowers. Here's Peter Strock.
Speaker 7 (40:20):
I do worry, certainly to the extent that it has
a even a subconscious chilling effect on what the organization
or individual agents and analysts are willing to do that
might cause them to incur the political wrath of Trump
or those around him. And that's the sort of concern
I have about the subconscious impact of if an organization
(40:41):
places its survival is such a high priority that risk
aversion seeps in.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Journalist Peter Baker has a different take.
Speaker 6 (40:50):
One of the most important days of his whole presence.
He was January third, twenty twenty one, three days before
January sixth, when he's trying a strong arm They made
er of the Justice Department to come out and endorse
his fictional account of a stolen election. And here are
all these guys who work for him, wanted to work
for him, asked the jobs to work for him, sitting
(41:11):
in the Oval Office saying we're not going to do that.
He's trying to force the Justice Department to basically help
him steal power, stay in power without this consent of
the governor, and they stood up to him. And it's
just boy, we talk about institutions and what I came
out away from this list? Yeah, institutions hell, but they're
really about individual people.
Speaker 16 (41:39):
Social media is absolutely flooded today with threatening posts in
the wake of the FBI searching Mara a Lago, supporters
writing things like lock and load, when does the shooting start?
And they will cry out in authentic pain soon.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
On MSNBC, the anchor is clearly rattled by violent threats
against the FBI following the bureau's search a former President
Trump's residence in mar Lago, Florida in August twenty twenty two.
The National Archives had been trying to retrieve classified documents
that the former president had taken from the White House.
The FBI obtained a search warrant and had finally taken
(42:17):
this unprecedented step, no doubt knowing the political firestorm that
would come their way. The former president responds to the
threats of violence by fanning the flames.
Speaker 5 (42:27):
The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters
controlled by radical left.
Speaker 13 (42:34):
Scoundrels, lawyers, and the media.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
Who tell them what to do, you people right there,
and when.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
To do it.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Two days after the FBI raid, an armed man in
body armor with an AR fifteen and a nail gun
is shot by police as he tries to breach the
FBI's Cincinnati field office. Social media posts by the attacker
encourage others to shoot agh on site. Andy McCabe I.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Had hoped, probably naively, that those sort of attacks on
the FBI were limited to myself and Jim Comey and
the others who worked with us on the rush At
case and the Clinton case. Most people in the FBI
saw it that way as well. The turning point has
been mar A Lago and the immediate reflexive action of
(43:25):
you know, Team Trump to attack the FBI agents who
executed a lawfully authorized search warrant. These allegations at FBI
agents have been planting evidence in mar A Lago and
all kinds of other stuff that's had an incredibly shocking
impact on people in the bureau.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
Still, the FBI's decision to go ahead with that raid
says something. The chilling effect that Peter worries about didn't
seem to keep the FBI from ultimately doing their jobs,
whatever the political fallout, It's just that now the stakes
seem a lot higher.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
Every time someone in American political leadership goes on television
and attacks the FBI, they are undermining the public's confidence
in the work that the FBI does, and that ultimately
makes us all less safe.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
And speaking of death and taxes, the year after Trump
left office, the New York Times broke the news that
in twenty seventeen, out of one hundred and fifty three
million individual tax returns filed that year, two notable individuals
had been selected for a randomized audit. Their names James
(44:42):
Comy and Andrew McCabe. Like the FBI, the IRS is
supposed to be a completely a political arm of government,
but former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly later
told reporters that someone had specifically asked him to order
IRS investigation into those men, Donald J.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
Trump.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Kelly didn't follow through on the request, but after he
left the audits happened anyway. By the way, it's a
violation of federal law to request directly or indirectly that
the IRS investigate a specific taxpayer. That prohibition applies to
any executive branch employee, including the President of the United States.
(45:39):
Next time on The Whistleblowers. When Lieutenant Colonel Alex Vinman
was a young immigrant from Ukraine, his father told him
that in America, unlike Russia, you can speak truth to
power without being sent to a gulag. But when Alex
lands in his dream job at the White House, he
iscovers that with this administration, that's not exactly the case.
(46:21):
The Whistleblowers is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership
with Best Case Studios and ARC Media. It was hosted
by me Miles Taylor and written by me Isabel Evans
and Adam Pinkis. Isabel Evans is also our producer. Associate
producers are Hannah Leebelwoods Lockhart, and Ashley Warren. Darcy Peakele
is consulting producer. Zach Herman is the VP of Development
(46:42):
of ARC Media. This episode was edited by Daniel Tuik
with assistants from Max Michael Miller. Original music is by
James Newberry. Executive producers are Me Miles Taylor, Adam Pinkis
for Best Case Studios and Barrick Goodman for ARC Media.
Beth Ann Mcaluso is our executive producer for iHeartMedia, along
with Allie. Special thanks to Kevin Famm, all of our
(47:02):
contributors and interviewees, and our intern an eleven and a
big thanks to the teams at Government Accountability Project and
Whistleblower Aid, two of the best organizations for government and
private sector whistleblowers seeking legal support. Follow and rate the
Whistleblowers on the podcast site of your choice to hear
what these whistleblowers and others have to say about what
(47:23):
they believe will happen under a second Trump administration or
in the White House of AMaGA successor. You can pick
up my new book, Blowback from Simon and Schuster
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