The Aspen Institute Aspen Ideas Festival In Conversation with James Comey. Greenwald Pavilion, Aspen Meadows Campus Aspen, Colorado

Transcription

1 The Aspen Institute Aspen Ideas Festival 2018 In Conversation with James Comey Greenwald Pavilion, Aspen Meadows Campus Aspen, Colorado Saturday, June 30, 2018 Speakers: James Comey Katie Couric

2 Kitty Boone: Hello? Hello? As my friend Graham [inaudible 00:00:12] who does such a great job of producing all these events with us here in Greenwald and the music town... he always says to us, "This is the first day of the rest of your life". And I take that very seriously. So, we're gonna have a really wonderful day and it doesn't stop with this session, which is one of the lighter sessions of the day. We actually have a big morning and we're gonna have a small lunch and move you after this. We have incredible sessions about art with Frank Gary, with Alexander Nemiroff. We have discussions about resiliency and euro skepticism following that. A session with David Rubinstein and Stuart Eizenstat. We have a very full day so it may be our last day and maybe perhaps my last time to thank you all for coming and being at the festival, this large group. We do have seats in [inaudible 00:01:00] if people want to sit, but with no further ad eau the two individuals that we're going to introduce to the stage need no more introduction than this. Welcome Katie Co uric and James Comey. Thank you so much. Thank you, Kitty. Hi everyone, good morning. James Comey, thank you so much for coming to the Aspen Ideas festival. I really am honored to be your 83rd interview for your book. I feel like Sarah Palin when I say, can I call you Jim? Yes, you can. Can I? You've known me since I was like 6'2. Alright seriously, thank you very much for being here. We've got a lot to cover so let's get right to it. An interesting thing happened toward the end of your media blitz. The justice department's inspector general, a former colleague of yours, name Michael Horowitz, issued a 500 page report about your actions as head of the FBI during the 2016 campaign. It was highly critical. Mm-hmm (affirmative). As you know. Let me read you some excerpts, your press conference in July of 2016 was "an in extraordinary and an insubordinate thing to do. We found none of Mr. Comey's reasons to be of persuasive basis for deviating from well established department policies". You engaged in your own, "Subjective, at hop decision making". The report also said your October 28th letter to congress announcing a reopened Clinton investigation was a "Serious error in judgment". Now, the time the report came out, you also wrote an op ed in the New York Times saying that even though you disagreed with some of Horowitz's conclusions, you respected the work his office did. That said, take us back to the day you were reading this report. What was that like?

3 It was painful. I had encouraged the report when I was director, and even after I got fired. I wanted them to do it because I think accountability's incredibly important to the institution, especially, and reading it was painful for a couple reasons. First, it was a bit of a... it's a trauma to go back through one of the most painful things I've ever been through as a leader and then it's painful to read yourself being criticized even though I expected to be criticized, it was painful. I read it in draft first and yeah, that's how I felt about it. Let's talk about these three big decisions you made. Mm-hmm (affirmative). I know you've addressed them all during your numerous interviews but the IG report really did breathe new life into the controversy. So, July 5th 2016, you held a press conference announcing you were not recommending charges be brought against Secretary Clinton that, "No reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case," but you also said that Clinton was, "Extremely careless in her handling of s". My question is this, what were you doing making this announcement in the first place? You were not the attorney general, you weren't even a prosecutor, why was it appropriate for you, as the investigator, to make that announcement? That's a great question. I was doing something I never could have imagined because normally the responsibility for announcing the closing of an investigation and offering transparency, which is done in cases of extraordinary public interest, for example Ferguson. We did a public report there, but it's always the attorney general that announces and the FBI director is typically standing next to the attorney general. The reason I did it here was I thought it was between two options, offering transparency separately or offering it standing next to the attorney general. The one least likely to do lasting damage to the institutions was this bad option not this bad option. I'm not picking on Loretta Lynch by saying that, but there were a number of things that had happened that led me to believe and reasonable people I knew at the time could see it differently, but led me to believe that it'll be very difficult for her to credibly announce the completion of an investigation of one of the two candidates for president of the United States, the candidate from the same party that she was in and President Obama... But there were other prosecutors who could have done that. Well no, not the way it was set up. Loretta had... I assume folks know some of this background. There was a lot of controversy during the final week of the investigation where she had had a meeting with Bill Clinton on an airplane. There was all kinds of storm about whether that was fatally compromised to her, all this kind of business, and I had no doubt that Loretta was a person of principle, but I worried a whole lot about the public perception that the investigation was not done credibly. And so, she announced, without talking to me or Sally Yates, that she was not gonna step out of the investigation, but she

4 would accept my recommendation and that of the career prosecutors. So, I don't know what option I had then besides choosing either to give her, the traditional thing, the norm, or do something I never imagined before, which is announce the recommendation she said she would accept separately. Well you said that of the career prosecutors, right? Right. So why not let them... They would not be able to announce anything.... well you told the justice department about the press conference after the media had been notified and you didn't tell them what you were going to say. A friend of mine, who's a very respected former federal prosecutor said the only reason not to fully inform the attorney general was that you knew you were doing something wrong and you didn't want to be stopped. I'm curious to hear your reaction to that. Only the second part of that's accurate. When I first read the words insubordination in the inspector general's report I actually had an emotional reaction like are you kidding me? She announced she would accept my recommendation, but I actually think it's fair criticism because I was intentionally not telling her what I was going to say and a superior, in normal circumstance, would expect that so I think that was fair. I wasn't not telling her because I thought I was doing something wrong. I thought, and honestly, I still think, between the two bad options it was the one that was best suited to protect the institutions, but I was doing it because I didn't want to give her the opportunity to stop me, because if she'd issued an order, don't do it. I would have followed that order. So the second part of what your friend said is fair. The first part is not. You've said you wanted to be transparent to make sure the FBI kept its credibility, but almost any time someone is investigated you come up with damaging information, or you can come up with damaging information about that person. It's highly unusual for prosecutors, much less investigators, to share that information if they're declining to prosecute. I'm not a lawyer, but I understand that's why they call it prosecutorial discretion, not law enforcement discretion. So why did you do it? I think that's right. As I said, the norm is the department of justice with the FBI standing next to them announces the closure of an investigation. It's not true that it never happens that transparency's offered when an investigation of prosecution is declined. It's done when the public interest requires it and I don't think there's a serious argument that the public interest didn't require some transparency here. I did it because I stared at the two options. If I do the normal

5 thing, stand next to the attorney general, a corrosive doubt will creep in about whether this was a political hit job to can an investigation of one of the two candidates for president of the United States and that would be fed by the fact that President Obama's already twice said there's no there, there. The attorney general has met with Bill Clinton, again, I don't think she did anything improper, but reasonable people, forget partisan wingnuts, reasonable people could have a doubt about what's going on with the attorney general right before she announces the closure of this investigation, meeting privately with Secretary Clinton's husband. So, my thinking was okay there's two options. This one is much worse for the institutions of justice. I can spend some of my personal credibility, because I wasn't viewed as a partisan and the FBI's and by doing that, protect the institution. I knew this was gonna be terrible for me personally, because I knew reasonable people could see it different and say the things that they've said, but I thought as between the two the FBI offering transparency separately is the result best calculated to maintain the faith and confidence of the American people, and end the investigation in a credible way, which we did, I thought. But why, if your intentions were so noble as you believe your actions were, have you been so roundly criticized by just about everyone? It's funny you say that, I don't actually... sometimes people say when everyone's mad at you it means you're right, no it doesn't. It could be you're completely wrong. I don't know for sure. I think people that have taken the time to put themselves in my shoes and I'm sure were gonna talk about October, which is a much more difficult decision, and stare at the options I stared at would say, as the inspector general did, I disagree with the results but I understand why he did what he did. If people take the time to do that, the most important thing about the inspector general's report, I believe for the institution is, we made the decisions in an A political way. We were trying to and honestly I've stared at this a thousand times, I would still do the same thing because doing the normal thing, norms produce predictable results in the normal situation. This is a 500 year flood. The Obama justice department, of which I'm a part, is investigating the democratic candidate for president of the United States is about to decline a criminal case on the eve of the conventions. How do you do that and maintain the faith and confidence of the American people? But is that really your job? Is that your job to decide how to maintain the faith and confidence of the American people? Yes, yes. Is that within your purview? Absolutely. When you are the leader of one of the institutions of justice you must care about that deeply because the entire institution rests upon the faith

6 and confidence of the American people. When the FBI rises, in a courtroom or in congress or in a cookout, they must be seen as independent in American life and must be trusted as people who care only about the facts. And so, despite the way you were raised, I'm sure you were raised the same way, my mother said, "You can't care what other people think". When you're director of the FBI you have to because you run a public institution. So transparency is incredibly important. I believe the American people were due transparency here, fair and open description of why there was no criminal case here. You called Hillary Clinton's behavior extremely careless. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Placing a value judgment on her, can you give me another example of an FBI agent or prosecutor coming forward to publicly malign someone they've decided not to prosecute? Sure, Lois Lerner. The IRS executive, the department of justice described her as poor manager but not engaged in criminal wrongdoing when they closed the investigation of the so called targeting of the tea party. Jose Padilla, who was the so called dirty bomber in 2004, I was at the justice department. We did a public announcement of why he had been detained and not prosecuted and described in great detail, his conduct. It is part of the norm to do that when the public interest requires it. Now, I've struggled with this. I wasn't trying to attack Hillary Clinton. I was trying to be transparent with the American people and describe the conduct. I don't think I could have credibly described the closure of an investigation, in which the former Secretary of State discussed top secret information eight times in s and secret information 50 some times in s without offering some evaluation. Now, I screwed it up because extremely careless was a stupid term to use. I should have said really sloppy. Really? Not being facetious. Because I was trying to explain to the American people look, there's ordinary sloppiness you leave a document at a Starbucks. There's criminal misconduct where you know you're doing something you should do, David Petraeus is an example of that and that's prosecuted. You don't get prosecuted for this, you get prosecuted for this. Hillary Clinton was not this. It was something much more serious than this, it was really sloppy but it didn't rise to the level of something that would be prosecuted. And so, I needed to describe why we thought the conduct fell short of this threshold for prosecution, but frankly, if I described it as Starbucks document stuff the result would have no credibility. In his memo that was used as the rationale for firing you, deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein...

7 Allegedly.... yeah. Sorry.... Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said that you, "Laid out your version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial. It is a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do". Another reason why I think that memo's nonsense. If you look at the tradition of the department of justice, I just gave you two examples, there's lots of others. Ferguson is an example, we published an 80 some page report describing the police officer's conduct in shooting Michael Brown. What he did, how it happened, we laid it all out and didn't prosecute that police officer. It happens from time to time as part of a long tradition in the department of justice when the public interest requires it. What I did here, the only part of this that I believe departed from the norms of the department of justice was instead of making the announcement standing next to the attorney general I announced it separately. There's no doubt though the announcement falls well within the conduct of the department as long engaged in. Let's talk about the second big decision you made... Yup.... one that has made many Hillary Clinton supporters angry to this day. On October 28, 2016, 11 days before the election, you sent a letter to congress that leaked to the public, I believe nine minutes later, that said the FBI found new s that could be pertinent to the Clinton investigation and you were reviewing them. According to the IG report these s were actually found more than a month earlier and the FBI failed to act. You were told about these s either in late September or early October and you didn't act, why the delay? I don't know why the delay. The investigators in New York were investigating Anthony Wiener, I'm gonna assume you all know who all that is and everything. They'd seized his laptop in a criminal investigation of him for improper sexual contact with a young woman and it was apparent to the investigators there that there looked to be hundreds of thousands of Hillary Clinton's s on there and that's late September. Sometime in early October somebody mentioned it to me in passing and I don't remember it because I wouldn't index on it. Why would there be a connection between Anthony Wiener's computer and Hillary Clinton's case. I don't know what the FBI did until I read the inspector general's report in that month. I know what happened with me. I walked in on October 27th to the investigative team sitting there telling me exactly what they

8 had found and asking me for a decision. Had they told me the same thing a month earlier I'm confident I would have done the same thing a month earlier and I wish, that's one piece of time I wish I could go back and fix. You said that once you were aware of these s and the fact that they needed to be reviewed you had two choices, in your words, speak, which was bad or conceal, which was catastrophic. Yup. So you chose bad, but the IG report says this mischaracterize your two choices, which were actually follow policy and practice or depart from policy and practice and that you chose to make your own rules. Yeah this is where I disagree with them, and I really like these people and know them. I think just framing it as follow the norms or depart from the norms is just another way of saying you have a decision to make, right? Norms, as I said, produce reliably good results in normal circumstances. In an incredibly un- Isn't it important to adhere to norms in abnormal circumstances particularly, in fact, the IG went on to write, Jim, to protect the institutions from allegations of abuse, political interference, and biased enforcement of the law, the department and the FBI have developed policies and practices to guide their decisions. In the vast majority of cases they are followed as a matter of routine. They are most important to follow when the stakes are the highest and when the pressures to divert from them, often based on well founded concerns and highly fraught scenarios are the greatest. Yup and I think as a statement of the importance of norms that's reasonable. They can't mean it though. They can't mean that in every circumstance you do what you would always normally do and this is where I disagree with their framing of it. You can't think about it that way as a lawyer and a leader. You should always say, "So what's the norm? I love the norms. I should try to adhere to the norms," which is why to me their framing of follow the norm or depart from the norm just tells yourself you have to ask a question. And so the next question is, okay if I follow the norm what happens to the institution I love? What's the damage that flows? If I depart from the norm, what happens to the institution? So let me just finish Katie, and so you have to still ask the question. I believe, and I don't mean this to be facetious, if I had concealed from the American people that what I and Loretta Lynch had said under oath, repeatedly in the summer, that we're done with Hillary Clinton American people. You can take that to the bank. You can vote knowing this is over and, Hillary Clinton were elected President and it came out that the FBI had hidden the restarting of that investigation. I don't mean this to be facetious there would be an inspector

9 general report about me and how I had destroyed the institution by departing from another norm, which is candor with the tribunal. When you make a statement under oath to a tribunal and you know it's not true, another norm in the FBI and the department of justice is you correct it. So I honestly think, this was a nightmare, but if I had chosen to conceal that I actually think there'd be an inspector general report- PART 1 OF 3 ENDS [00:19:04] But, if I had chosen to conceal that I actually think there would be an Inspector General report ripping me for being a slavish adherent to following what we always do in all circumstances. But, a lot of this was timing. Eleven days before the election you said you'd put out the letter because you had a duty to correct the record, because you told Congress, and the public, the investigation was closed, and now new evidence had emerged. But, wouldn't any prosecutor, or investigator, worth his or her salt wait to see if the new evidence was significant enough before charging out and announcing it, knowing that it was such a political grenade you were throwing? That's a reasonable question, but here's the problem. You're sitting there as the director of the FBI, and the Attorney General, by the way, I offered her the opportunity to weigh in on this decision and she passed, and that's the truth. I said, "Here's what we face, the investigative team is telling me not only are there hundreds of thousands of Hilary Clinton's s on Anthony Weiner's laptop, for reasons we can't possibly explain, but we may have found the missing s." You remember what I described, the reason there was no prosecution here is there was no evidence that she knew she was doing something wrong. If there was gonna be that evidence it would come at the beginning of her tenure as Secretary of State. We never found any s from her first three months as Secretary, because those were on a Blackberry device. That morning, October 27, the investigative team says to me, "Not only are there hundreds of thousands of her Clinton Domaine s, there are tens of thousands of her blackberry s on Anthony Weiner's laptop." So, they said to me, "Sir, the result may change." So, you may decide to wait, maybe wait and see. They're also telling me, "We can't possibly finish before the election," so what do I do? Do I wait and see if we can get a peak, do I wait till after the election> That's the problem. Why were they saying they couldn't finish before the election, because they did? Well, the reason they were saying it made complete sense to me. You couldn't bring in recruits from Quantico like you would if you were looking for a bullet in

10 a hayfield, because people who knew the context had to actually read these s to see if they contained classified information, or if they contained clues to her intent. They said, "We can't possibly do that in the 11 days left, and we can't use deduplicating software that's commonly available that law firms use, because the s all have to be on our classified networks. We have no capability on the classified networks." Then, what they did over that frantic week was our software engineers built deduplicating software for the classified networks and cut it down to 6000 or so they had to read individually, and so a team of about half a dozen read them night after night after night and finished on the Sunday before the election, and they found lots of new stuff, but they said to me on Sunday morning before the election, "Our view of her culpability has not changed." Couldn't you have done that, though, before writing that letter? But, how would I do that, though. The team is telling me, credibly, "We can't possibly finish before the election," and so what would be my reason to wait? Now, there's been a lot of speculation out there like, "Well, was he counting on a leak?" No, in fact, I thought there was some prospect that it would leak once we enlarged the circle and we had a big team in New York knowing about the search warrant, but I thought that in a way, would be the worst of all worlds for the FBI, because that would be speaking and concealing. So, you were afraid of a leak? Of course. Loretta Lynch when she was consoling me on October 31, after I wrote the letter, said, "Would they feel better if it leaked on November the 4th?" What I understood her to be saying is this was gonna come out anyway, but my view was, I can't make a decision about something of this incredible importance by assuming it's gonna leak. I have to own the decision on behalf of the Institution, and to offer the Attorney General the opportunity to help me make it. So, she consoled you? Yeah. What did she say? She hugged me. I'm an awkward hugger to begin with, but- We've seen that in the Oval Office sector. Yeah, yeah. I have to correct that. There was no hug. And no kiss.

11 And there was no kiss. She hugged me and then she said... You asked me... I've known Loretta a really long time and really like her, and I think she really likes me. She hugged me and said, "How are you doing?" I said, "It's a complete nightmare. It's the worst thing I've ever been involved in," and I explained, "what choice do I have?" She said, "Would they feel better if it leaked on November the fourth?" What I understood her to be saying was, basically, "Don't be so hard on yourself. Your decision was actually not as important as you think it was, because it was gonna come out anyway." Maybe, but you can't make decisions that way when you're leading an institution. The IT report says the other reason you wrote the letter to Congress was your belief that Clinton would win and this would taint her presidency. Looking back on this, do you ever think, "What was I thinking? Political prognostication should have absolutely nothing to do with my decision making. I should not even be contemplating the political future." Yeah, it didn't. I didn't. I intentionally pushed that to the side. One of my best advisors... We talk about I made this decision, I actually made it with a group of about 10 or 12 people. One of the best people in that group is a very talented lawyer who asked me a searing question. She said, "Should you consider that what you're about to do may help elect Donald Trump President?" I said, "Thank you for asking that question. It's a great question. Not for a moment," because down that path lies the death of the FBI as an independent force in the United States of America. If I ever start considering who's political fortunes will be helped in what way by a decision we're just another partisan player. I can't. So, you never worried this would taint her presidency if you did not come forward with this information, or if it came out later? No. We visualized that, talked about it and then pushed it aside. Now, what I've done in the book, which they tell me is a mistake for a Washington book, I've tried to be introspective and ask myself that. Could it have affected me that the whole world assumed she was gonna be elected President, and the honest answer is of course. I was making that decision in an environment where everyone thought she was gonna win, but I don't remember consciously thinking about it. Honestly, it wouldn't change the decision. I can't conceal that if Hilary Clinton's up 20 points in the polls, and I can't conceal it if Donald Trump's up 20 points in the polls, because either way would be catastrophic for the Institution. Now, it makes the decision easier because, if you think about it, the damage to Hilary Clinton would be far, far worse if she was the President elected. Imagine the result changes. She's a President elected with an investigation underway the FBI hid from the American people, and the FBI concludes she is criminally culpable after the election. Oh my Lord, but that is not why I made the decision. Well, many people think thanks to your actions we don't even have to contemplate that.

12 No, I get that. I get that, and I hope and pray that's not true. I don't mean this to sound also dismissive. It doesn't change how I think about the result. As painful as it is, even in hindsight I think I made the right choice, and I know the Inspector General disagrees, but I say to people, "Please come with me to October 28 and stare at those choices and tell me which is the one most consistent with the values of the Institution you lead." I get that the IG sees it differently. I like them. I think they're wrong. We're gonna get to the election results and how this might have affected them in a moment, but I have to ask you about your s. The IG report said you, yourself, conducted official FBI business on your personal account. You didn't use it for classified information, nevertheless, the report said it was against policy. So, if Hilary Clinton were sitting in this chair today, how would you explain that? First of all, I'd say, "I hope you understand what our investigation was about." I've said this publicly a lot. It wasn't about her use of an unclassified system, whether personal or state department, I don't really care. "It was about how you handled classified information." It would be the same investigation whether you were using AOL, or clinton .com, or the State Department system. My use of it... Actually, I don't agree with that that's is inconsistent with policy. I would send speeches to myself at home to word process at home and then send them back to my account. It wasn't about handling classified information, and I do think some of the focus on this, the media, reflects confusion about what the investigation was about. A lot of people hearing it, though, at least at its face value think, "Oh, the irony." Yeah, yeah, I get that. I get that, but, again, if you look at it, it really has nothing to do with the investigation that we conducted. Let's talk about the impact this letter to Congress 11 days before the election had on the results. Two days before the election you issued that statement saying there was no there there, basically. Well, no, saying that our conclusion had not changed. There was plenty of new there there. But, your conclusion had not changed? Correct. Nate Silver, the highly respected polling guru wrote. "Hilary Clinton would probably be president if FBI Director, James Comey, had not sent a letter to Congress on October 28." He goes on to say the letter, "Upended the news cycle and soon halved Clinton's lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the electoral college." Now, while Nate says that there were other factors at play,

13 he also wrote, "Because Clinton lost Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by less than one point, the letter was probably enough to change the outcome of the electoral college." I know you talked about that briefly a few minutes ago, but that must be a tremendously heavy burden for you. Do you feel responsible for the election of Donald Trump and the current State of the Union? I hope these answers don't sound contradictory. I don't, but I also... It is a heavy burden, and I've said this, and I think our current President misunderstood what I meant. It leaves me feeling mildly nauseous to think, and I should have said nauseated, I know, but it leaves me feeling- My dad used to always correct me. Nauseous means you make people nauseated. Which I may, may anyway. One of my daughters corrected me. Here's why I say that, that I've devoted my whole life to institutions of justice that want nothing to do with elections. The most powerful norm I've lived under is you take no action in the run up to an election that might have an impact on the election. I believe in that to my core. My problem was, I couldn't find a door labeled "no action" on October the 28th. I could see two actions and they were both really bad. Look, I feel sick to my stomach about it, but in an odd way I don't feel responsible because I'm proud of the way we made the decisions. We thought about the right things. Once of the things the IG confirmed for me is didn't miss anything in terms of norms. There aren't any rules about this. We thought about it well, we argued about it, we debated it. I offered the leadership of the Department of Justice the chance to take the decision from me, and their response was, "We think it's a bad idea, but it's his call." So, I think we made the decision in the right way, thinking about the right things, and I honestly wouldn't change it going back, and so there's peace in that. I know it seems contradictory. There's peace in that just the same time there's nausea about the fact that you had any involvement. If I could change time you would never have heard of me. I don't want to be famous. I didn't want to be involved at all. This was a living nightmare, but I'm very proud of the way the leadership team around me made this decision. You say you don't want to be famous, but you wrote in your book, "I've long worried about my ego,"... Sure.... and you've admitted you can be driven by ego. So, you don't think any of this was driven by ego even a little bit? I don't think so, although how well do any of us really know ourselves? That's true about me. I thought I was such hot stuff, as my mother used to say,

14 especially when I was younger. I married an amazing person who has beaten that out of me in a lot of ways. Look, I do worry. Any leader should worry about that. It's the reason I put a team around me of people who will speak the truth to me. I don't think this decision was made for ego reasons. One of the reasons I say that is, I could see the future. I knew how bad this was gonna be for me personally. The best thing for me personally would have been to do the normal thing in July and let Loretta Lynch announce this baby, and do the normal thing in October and say, "Well, we never comment," and let the Institution take the hit. One of the things that annoys my amazing wife is she says, "Why are you stepping in front of the Institution and getting shot repeatedly?" Because that's my job. I knew how bad this was gonna be for me. I've asked myself this a million times, because I worry about myself, I really don't think these were driven by ego. Let's talk about the third decision, and I want to roll through this, because there's so much I want to ask you about what's going on today. This concerns the Russia investigation. We now know that by the time the election rolled around that investigation had been going on for months. It was never made public. You refused to confirm or deny it, and you followed FBI protocol. Can you explain what appears to be a blatant double standard? Yep. It's a reasonable question. Actually, it was an easy decision for us because, think about the difference between the Clinton investigation and the Russia counterintelligence investigation. Clinton investigation began with a public referral in 2015 to the FBI. The subject of the investigation was Hilary Clinton herself. I refused to confirm that even existed for three months after it came to us publicly, and then spoke not another word until we closed it with transparency. The Russia counterintelligence investigation is different. There's two things going on in the summer of 2016 about Russia. One is our trying to understand the massive Russian effort to mess with our election. There I thought we ought to offer the American people transparency and I wrote an op ed that I offered to the Obama Administration to tell the American people, "Here's what's going on." That's one thing with Russia. The separate, and very different was, we got information in late July that Americans may be connected to that effort and so we opened a counterintelligence investigation, not focused on Donald Trump, but focused on people in the Trump orbit on whom we had kind of wisps of information. We actually never talked about disclosing that because what would we say? But- Let me just finish for a second. We just opened this investigation on Americans. We don't know if there is anything to it at all, and it doesn't involve the candidate himself. It honestly never came up. We wrestled a whole lot about

15 what to say about this, but I can't imagine anyone in our shoes disclosing the beginning of a counterintelligence investigation. But, on October 31, 2016, that was nine days before the election the New York Times published a story saying that the FBI had found, "No conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government. FBI sources also said that Russian hacking was aimed simply at disrupting the presidential election and not helping Donald Trump." You said in an interview with the New Yorker, with David Remnick, that was false. Did you know the story was wrong at the time, and if so why not correct the record? Well, when the stories that are wrong about classified investigations, classified subjects, we never correct them unless we're in a position where the matter is public in some way. So, that story was wrong in the second respect, in that what we concluded about Russia was they were trying to damage our democracy most of all. That was their overwhelming desire. Second, hurt Hilary Clinton. Third, help elect Donald Trump. In that respect it was wrong, the first part was not wrong, but yet there was no serious discussion about correcting that. There was agony. President Obama had a hard decision to make. "Do I tell the American people the Russians are coming for our election?" That was a very hard decision. That was his to make. But, couldn't a reasonable voter in October 2016 conclude, based on information coming from Jim Comey's FBI, that Hilary Clinton was a candidate overwhelmed by scandal who had acted extremely carelessly and Donald Trump did nothing wrong? Did nothing wrong in what sense? Did nothing wrong in terms of there was no collusion, there was no suspicion that he was involved with the Russians, and that that was kind of a case closed, at least that article in the Times... Not a case closed, but-... led people to that, I think, conclusion? Right. The thing about the Times is a detail but it matters. They weren't reporting official disclosures by the FBI or the Department of Justice, which is an important thing. They were reporting whatever they were getting from their sources. Whatever they were reporting they... But, Donald Trump-... were giving voters an impression.

16 Right, but it's not the government's responsibility to correct erroneous reports based on sources. It just isn't. But, to come to the most important question. Donald Trump was not a subject of a counterintelligence investigation in October We were still trying to figure out, "Was anybody in that orbit working with the Russians?" and, still didn't know the answer at that point. I actually don't know what the answer is today. We had enough to open an investigation, but by that point I had no basis to believe there was evidence of a connection between people, a solid connection between people, and the Russian effort. What do you think now? I don't know. I don't know what Bob Mueller will find, and I worry that people from all points of the political spectrum project onto him hopes for a result. My only hope is for the truth. If he's left to do his job he may find there's not significant evidence of a connection. I don't know what he'll find, an obstruction of justice. I honestly don't know. Just, he'll find the facts if he's allowed to finish. If there is evidence of a crime should Mueller indict or refer the information to Congress for possible impeachment proceedings, in your view? I don't know what he should do, because I'm not an expert enough- PART 2 OF 3 ENDS [00:38:04]... know what he should do, because I'm not an expert enough to know how to think about the... you're talking about the president I assume? Yes. How to think about indicting the president. I gather... again, I have not read it myself, but I gather there's a Department of Justice opinion that you can't indict a sitting president, and so he would need to sort that out with the legal beagles. Let's talk about President Trump's temperament. You have said, "I think he has an emptiness inside of him and a hunger for affirmation in him I've never seen in an adult," which sounds like a textbook definition of a narcissist. After his comments following the white supremacy rally in Charlottesville, you said you believed, "he is morally unfit to be president." Has your opinion of President Trump changed for better or for worse in the last say year? It's gotten worse, because I see more of the behavior that I think whether you're a republican, or democrat, or independent, you should care deeply about the erosion of the central norm of the United States of America, the truth, and it's attack on the rule of law that I've never imagined before.

17 And so it's those attacks on our norms and our values have only gotten more serious, and everybody should care about them no matter where you are on the policy spectrum, because all we are in this country is a collection of values. If we lose those, really, you're going to trade that for some position on taxes, or immigration, or anything else? You should never trade what is essentially American. Is there anything specifically you're particularly concerned about when you look at his actions and his rhetoric? Well, those two. I think the central touchstone of American public life is the truth. We always measure our leaders by their tether to the truth. George W. Bush spoke falsely when he said, "There are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq." Barack Obama spoke falsely when he said, "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor," and then both of those people spent the rest of their tenure, and probably the rest of their lives, explaining the tether to the touchstone. "I didn't know that. I meant this. I understood this," because the touchstone is something they see. There's so much lying going on right now, there's a risk this is going to melt like a sandcastle at the beach. We will become numb to the fact that it is the center of the United States of America, and stop judging our leader by the touchstone to this. That is deeply concerning and closely connected to the rule of law. I wake up probably once a week, and the President of the United States has tweeted that I should be in jail, and I honestly laugh, because I know there's nothing to that, it's just him saying stuff. Then I stop and actually criticize myself and say, "What are you doing? You're becoming numb to something that is profoundly threatening to the central norm of rule of law in this country." I used to be a republican. I say to my former republican colleagues, "Imagine Barack Obama wakes up in the morning and announces that so-and-so should be in jail. Your head would explode, and why would it explode? Because that norm, the rule of law in this country, Lady Justice with a blindfold, is all we are as a country, so I'm deeply concerned about all of us becoming numb to what's happening to us." Your republican colleagues with whom you have these conversations, are they outraged? Most republicans don't talk to me anymore, so I've succeeded in pissing off everyone except Patrice, who still loves me. I think what they're doing is making a trade. They've convinced themselves that the Supreme Court or a tax cut or something is worth it, and I keep saying to them, and because they don't talk to me personally, I say it in the media. I ask them to take the grandchildren test.

18 "What are you going to tell your grandchildren? You were here and you traded what? For this?" You traded that so that my small contribution in what I hope is a very brief period where I'm a celebrity is to raise all of our eyes above the things we normally fight about and stare at the values in this country, because without them... I mean, we're a country that shouldn't exist. I mean, we're not united by religion, by ethnicity, by anything except our commitment to a set of ideas. We hold these truths to be self-evident. Truth is our fourth word in our foundational documents. We've always been imperfect, but we are organized around a set of values. They're not worth trading for anything, and in the long-run, your grandchildren are going to look up at you and say, "What did you do?" And I hope to God all of us realize that in the end, that's the most important question for us to answer. I get the power of the moment, right? People are passionate about this, passionate about that. Holy cow, please take the long view. I called my book A Higher Loyalty because I hope all of us are loyal first and foremost to those things, and then we can get back to these other things. I hope in the next presidential election, people will vote their values. I don't care who they vote for, so long as they vote those values first of all. We have to restore the presidency as the representative, the embodiment, imperfect because it's always people, but a representative of those values. Then we get back to all the important disagreements. Does Donald Trump have a single... does he have a single attribute other than his energy that you admire, or is there anything he's done at all in the last year and a half that you appreciate or support? Energy is one, so that would be the given. I think he is extraordinarily perceptive, and very good of public mood and communication. I think what he's done with his ability to step through filters and communicate directly is genius. Now, I think a lot of it is really bad the way it's done, but it's really extraordinary, and will change the way public figures think and talk about communication in the future. I think that's extraordinary. Because I focus so much on his erosion, his attack on our central norms and values, I really can't think of much positive to say beyond that. Let's talk about Justice Kennedy, who announced he's retiring. What do you believe will be the biggest consequences of a new, more conservative Supreme Court? I don't know for sure, because it will depend upon their adherence to the principles of Starry Decisis, which is a really important norm in the court system,

19 that is you respect that which has been decided, unless there's a significant change in facts or an intervening change in the law. I would imagine on close calls, there will be more of a so-called conservative... much easier to assemble a conservative majority to win a 5-4 case on important issues. Well, I know that legal analyst and write Jeff Toobin predicted Roe v Wade would be overturned, and within 18 months, abortion would be illegal in 20 states. Do you believe that? I don't know that, I don't know that, because again, it's a really important part of the entire judicial system, especially the Supreme Court, this notion that precedent must be respected, absent something fundamental, especially a fundamental change in facts, so I actually don't know that. It's possible, but my view is probably you would have to take a deeply unprincipled stand with respect to tradition and precedent, and I can't imagine a new Justice supporting that, at least that early in their tenure. In this morning's Wall Street Journal, you talk about norms and values, and Floyd Abrams called Justice Kennedy, "the First Amendment's undisputed champion." Do you worry about the absence of his voice at a time when freedom of the press and the fourth estate is being so maligned and so undermined? Sure, of course. I don't know though again, what decisions will be effected at the margins by a change in a Justice, but of course I do. I think we should all... wholly apart from the Supreme Court, where I often think we pour too much of our attention, we've surrendered as a people, a whole lot of power to the Supreme Court that actually we ought to call on our Congress to take an act on. I think more generally we should worry deeply about the president's attacks on the rule of law. That's another one I left out, obviously, central. Freedom of expression, freedom of religion, that's at the core of this nation. A president who wakes up announcing that the press is the enemy of the American people, wow. What are you going to tell your grandchildren? Let's talk about your future. I know in the acknowledgements, you thanked a lot of people, and you said, "Thank you for the joy in the journey, which isn't over yet." So let's talk about what's ahead for you. On June 16th you tweeted, "So good to see new growth in Iowa and across the country," with a picture of yourself in an Iowa field. Yeah. That just means people don't realize I'm married to an Iowa girl, and I visit there all the time. That was actually my subtle way of maybe temporarily, maybe forever, ending my presence on Twitter, because it began with Patrice. She took a picture of me. I'm so tall standing in a corn field, and then people are like, "He's running?" No, never. But she took a picture of me as we went for a

20 walk through a new field, and then we tweeted it out kind of as bookend on my Twitter career. Because your Twitter alias thing is very confounding to people. Talk about that. My Twitter alias is Reinhold Niebuhr, who's a theologian and philosopher who had a tremendous influence on me as a young person. Still does, because it's really the message I hope to share with young people. Niebuhr said, "The world sucks. So what?" Right? So what? Don't you dare withdraw just because it sucks. Get in there, step into the public square, and achieve justice. My great worry today is the young people are going to look at it and say, "God it's so icky. I don't want to be involved in that," and they can't. We need them to step forward, and I see it already. In the end of my book, I described Donald Trump as a forest fire, and I chose that metaphor on purpose, because he's doing tremendous damage to this country, but forest fires allow things to grow that could not grow before. I see the growth already as I travel around. I've had to travel a lot as part of the book tour, and I see young people engaged like I never imagined. I see record numbers of women running for office, so many that they're competing with each other. Could you ever imagine that five years ago? I'm optimistic, and I also just finished Jon Meacham's book, which told me, "It has sucked before-" And it will suck again. It will suck again. I walked out of Meacham's book with this graphical metaphor. America's line is always an upward slope, but if you stare at it, it's not a solid line, it's a jagged line. Periods of progress, retrenchment, progress, retrenchment, right? We forget that 1920 to '24 there were 20 some million Ku Klux Klan members in this country. A third of the Congress was KKK members as a reaction to women getting the vote, huge numbers of immigrants, blacks getting marginal improvements. Then we saw it again in the 1950s to '54, Joe McCarthy dominated our politics. His fellow party members were afraid to speak out against him, and then he faded. This too shall pass. What's really important for all of us is, know that it will pass, but cabin the danger. Confine the fire so the recovery, the healing of those scars, is faster, but we are going to heal and we are going to recover. Patrice's Iowa roots aside, would you ever consider running for president? No. No.