San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Behind the curtain
Those who have seen the flurry of pre-release excerpts from “Fear,” Bob Woodward’s new book about the Trump White House, might be wondering how much more they would learn in its 420 pages.
It turns out there is plenty to discover in this meticulously reported account of the infighting, dysfunction and impulsive decision-making in President Trump’s administration. As in each of the Woodward books about the White House since “All the President’s Men,” which he co-authored with Carl Bernstein, “Fear” brings the readers inside the room and onto the phone line for a disturbing portrait of the president and the people who surround him.
“Fear” is Woodward at his best, the quintessential investigative reporter with an eye for detail and an uncanny ability to get key players to ensure that their perspective is etched into history. Its timing could not be more crit-
ical for a nation exhausted by tweets and spin, and trying to assess the danger to democracy posed by a presidency that shatters its norms and demeans its institutions.
Book sales no doubt received a boost from the recent New York Times opinion piece by an unnamed “senior official in the Trump administration” describing the president’s erratic behavior and efforts by the author and colleagues to thwart “Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses.”
The credibility of that Times piece is only enhanced by the myriad examples in “Fear” in which a White House adviser, a Cabinet official, an aide, a U.S. senator or even a family member intervened to save the president from himself — or, sometimes, even spare the nation of an economic or national security calamity.
One of the more harrowing examples is when Trump, in the throes of a tweet fight with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this year, raised the specter (within the White House, but not publicly) of tweeting that he was ordering all U.S. military dependents out of South Korea. Kim surely would have interpreted it as a harbinger of war, cautions Sen. Lindsey Graham. “Because when you make that decision, it is hard to go back,” Graham told Trump on the phone. “The day you do that is the day you rock the South Korean economy and the Japanese economy. That is a big frigging deal.”
One of the recurring themes of “Fear” is Trump’s obsession with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Woodward goes beyond previously published accounts of the firing of FBI Director James Comey and Trump’s frustration with Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his recusal from the case. “Fear” describes Trump’s rage, storming between two rooms as he watched cable news about the backlash to the Comey firing. “Everybody’s trying to get me,” he says. “It’s unfair. Now everybody’s saying I’m going to be impeached.”
Americans trying to discern the ultimate course of the special counsel’s investigation will be fascinated by clues in Woodward’s detailed descriptions of the back-channel discussions between Trump lawyer John Dowd and the Mueller team. Dowd is portrayed as a fierce advocate for the president who has built a good rapport with James Quarles of the prosecution team but is nevertheless frustrated in his efforts to glean the full scope of the probe.
The dialogue is particularly acute in a March 5 meeting at Mueller’s office in which Dowd laid out the reasons Trump was not going to testify, explaining that it was impossible to ask a president who is “getting information from all quarters” every day to remember events “of little moment in his life” from early in his presidency. “I don’t want him looking like an idiot,” Dowd told Mueller.
Dowd, citing the White House cooperation with documents and testimony, demands to know “one question that no one has answered.”
“Well, I want to know if he had corrupt intent,” Mueller replies.
He leaves no doubt: Obstruction of justice is being pursued. Mueller is described as “stone-faced — marble, nonresponsive” as Dowd later tries to almost taunt the special counsel into showing his cards.
Any administration has a certain amount of infighting over policy and positions of power, but the backbiting and dysfunction in the Trump White House, as documented by Woodward, is extreme.
What is unusual is the president’s openly expressed contempt for certain people he put in high positions, from his first chief of staff, Reince Priebus (“like a little rat … he just scurries around”) to Attorney General Jeff Sessions (a “traitor” and an “idiot.”)
“Fear” makes plain that a deficiency of loyalty goes in both directions with Donald Trump.
“As a general rule, in relations with Trump, the closer you were, the further away you got,” Woodward writes. “You started with 100 points. You couldn’t get more.”
He adds that, in an odd way, it was “the outside circle” that had the most clout with Trump — not the people he brought in for high-level West Wing jobs. The chain of command is often ignored when a favored influencer, such as hardliners Peter Navarro on trade or Stephen Miller on immigration, bypass channels to play to Trump’s ego and instincts in the Oval Office.
The dysfunction is amplified by the unfettered access and willingness to bigfoot the process of the first daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Jared Kushner. “They were like a posse of second guessers, hovering, watching, interacting as family and senior advisers with the president. Ivanka planted seeds of doubt about policy and passed her father articles.”
Not surprisingly, some Trump allies have distanced themselves from quotes or anecdotes in the book. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has denied calling Trump an “idiot.” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he did not, as the book states, describe the president as having the understanding of “a fifth or sixth grader.” Woodward, who shares two Pulitzer Prizes, has suggested Kelly and Mattis are “not telling the truth” as “political statements” to keep their jobs.
Dowd, the president’s lawyer, denied warning Trump that he would end up in “an orange jump suit” if he were to testify before the special counsel. Dowd also insisted that he did not regard Trump as a “f—ing liar,” as the book concludes on its last page.
Readers who have seen the impressive bounty of evidence compiled by Woodward will roll their eyes at Dowd’s denial.
John Diaz is The Chronicle’s editorial page editor. Email: jdiaz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnDiazChron