Epstein Secrets

vernment as avoiding conflict. This included most people in office. The new appointees in place at the affected agencies and departments, among them Homeland Security and State—General John Kelly, then the director of Homeland Security, would carry a grudge about the disarray caused by the immigration EO—wanted not

of liberals, who hoped to use these “incidental” wiretaps as a way to tie the Trump camp to a wide- ranging conspiracy with Russia. In short order, McGahn, Priebus, and Bannon, each with prior doubts about Flynn’s reliability and judgment—“a fuck-up,” according to Bannon—conferred about the Yates messag

ic ways of doing it—which had in fact been suggested to Trump. (A curious one—an idea that later would seem ironic—was to get rid of General Kelly at Homeland Security and move Comey into that job.) But the point really was that Trump had wanted to confront and humiliate the FBI director. Cruelty was a Trump attribu

Trump had taken it up.) Firing Comey will be a huge fundraising advantage, declared the president, a man who almost never talked about fundraising. McGahn tried to explain that in fact Comey himself was not running the Russia investigation, that without Comey the investigation would proceed anyway. McGa

staff fit in Trumpworld? While Kelly stood somewhere right of center on the political spectrum and had been a willing tough immigration enforcer at Homeland Security, he was not anywhere near so right as Bannon or Trump. “He’s not hardcore” was Bannon’s regretful appraisal. At the same time, Kelly was certainly no

3, 109, 188, 264-65, 288, 296, 304-5 May, Theresa, 258 McCain, John, 112, 306 McCarthy, Joe, 73 McConnell, Mitch, 32, 117, 301-2 McCormick, John, 167 McGahn, Don, 95, 212-14, 217 McLaughlin, John, 10 McMaster, H. R., 109, 176, 185, 188-93, 211, 235, 258, 263-68, 276-77, 288-89, 298-99, 304-5 McNerney, Jim