Donald Trump v. The United States

Donald Trump v. The United States Plot Summary

Introduction

On a warm July day in 2016, FBI Director James Comey stepped before cameras to make an announcement that would change American history. His decision about Hillary Clinton's emails, made without consulting his Justice Department superiors, broke with decades of protocol. Just months later, as Donald Trump entered the White House, this same independent streak would place Comey on a collision course with a president who expected personal loyalty above all else. What followed was an unprecedented battle between presidential authority and the institutions designed to check that power. The conflict that unfolded between 2016 and 2020 tested America's constitutional system in ways not seen since Watergate. As Trump demanded loyalty from law enforcement officials, fired those who refused to comply, and attempted to derail investigations into his campaign and administration, career officials faced impossible choices between following presidential orders and upholding their oaths to the Constitution. Their stories reveal how democratic institutions function when under extraordinary pressure, and what happens when longstanding norms meet a president determined to expand executive power at any cost. For anyone seeking to understand the fragility and resilience of American democracy, these events provide essential lessons about the delicate balance between presidential authority and the rule of law.

Chapter 1: The FBI's Independence: Comey's Dilemma (2015-2016)

The summer of 2015 marked the beginning of an extraordinary period in American political history. On July 10, FBI Director James Comey held an unusual press conference taking personal responsibility for a background check failure that had allowed the Charleston church shooter to purchase a gun. This public accountability reflected Comey's leadership philosophy—transparent, principled, and willing to face difficult truths. Yet on that same day, elsewhere in FBI headquarters, agents quietly opened an investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State. This investigation, code-named "Midyear Exam," would eventually collide with another significant development: Donald Trump's unconventional presidential campaign. As Clinton's email probe continued, Russian intelligence services launched a sophisticated operation to influence the American election, targeting Democratic organizations and attempting to sow discord among voters. The FBI found itself navigating extraordinarily complex terrain, investigating a major presidential candidate during an election while maintaining its reputation for independence. By late June 2016, Comey faced what he later described as the most consequential decision of his career. The investigation had concluded there wasn't sufficient evidence to recommend criminal charges against Clinton, but Comey believed that simply allowing the Department of Justice to announce this conclusion would fuel conspiracy theories about a "rigged system." His personal history shaped his response—having survived a near-fatal bout with colon cancer years earlier, he had developed a heightened sense of moral clarity. His famous hospital showdown with White House officials during the Bush administration had cemented his reputation as someone willing to stand on principle regardless of political pressure. On July 5, 2016, Comey took the unprecedented step of holding a press conference without informing his Justice Department superiors of his specific plans. He announced the FBI's recommendation against charges while simultaneously criticizing Clinton's conduct as "extremely careless." The fallout was immediate and intense. Democrats initially accepted Comey's conclusion while Republicans attacked him for not recommending charges. However, when Comey sent a letter to Congress on October 28 announcing the discovery of new Clinton emails on Anthony Weiner's laptop, the political reaction reversed. The investigation ultimately found nothing new, but the damage was done—Clinton would later blame Comey's letter as a decisive factor in her defeat. Comey's decisions during this period reflected his self-image as an institutional guardian, someone willing to break with protocol to preserve the FBI's credibility. "I believed the job of the FBI director is to be as transparent as possible with the American people," Comey explained, "because we work for them." Yet his wife Patrice, a lifelong Democrat who supported Clinton, warned him against both the July press conference and the October letter. "This is going to be bad for you," she told him. But Comey believed he was protecting the institution of the FBI from inevitable political attacks. "I am screwed no matter what happens," he told her. "If I disclose this, I'm screwed. If I don't disclose this, I'm screwed. And so it's freeing in a way." The Clinton investigation represented a fundamental clash between institutional norms and unprecedented circumstances. Comey's decisions, whether justified or not, would forever change how the FBI operated in politically sensitive investigations and set the stage for the even more tumultuous conflicts to come during the Trump presidency. By election day 2016, the convergence of Comey's controversial decisions, Trump's unconventional candidacy, Russian interference, and deepening partisan divides had created the perfect storm. The FBI, an institution designed to remain above politics, found itself at the center of the most contentious election in modern history.

Chapter 2: Institutional Collision: Trump's First Demands (2017)

On January 20, 2017, Donald Trump entered the Oval Office as the 45th President of the United States, marking a profound shift in American politics. Within hours of taking the oath of office, Trump's behavior signaled that this would be no ordinary presidency. Rather than being humbled by the weight of history and responsibility, he immediately focused on the aesthetics of power—admiring the lighting that would make him look good on camera and boasting to friends about his new "toys" and Secret Service protection. The new administration was marked by chaos from its first moments. Trump's inner circle consisted of an unusual mix: family members like son-in-law Jared Kushner with ill-defined roles, campaign loyalists with little government experience, and a few Washington veterans trying to impose order. White House Counsel Don McGahn, a libertarian election lawyer who had negotiated extraordinary control over judicial nominations, found himself in what he described as a "pickup game" with players who had never been on the court before. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus struggled to establish authority, while Chief Strategist Steve Bannon pushed an aggressive agenda of executive orders. Trump's fundamental misunderstanding of government became immediately apparent. He believed presidents could do whatever they wanted, growing irritated when told about constitutional constraints. "Let's just do it and if someone wants to sue us, they can," became a common refrain. Most alarmingly, Trump failed to grasp the traditional independence of the Justice Department and FBI, viewing them instead as tools to protect his interests. He frequently compared himself to previous presidents, asking, "You're telling me that Bobby and Jack didn't talk about investigations? Or Obama didn't tell Eric Holder who to investigate?" The institutional collision reached a critical juncture just twenty-four days into the administration when a national security crisis erupted involving National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Acting Attorney General Sally Yates rushed to the White House to inform McGahn that Flynn had discussed sanctions with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition period and then lied about it to Vice President Pence, potentially making him vulnerable to blackmail. For nearly two weeks, Flynn remained as National Security Advisor despite this warning. During this period, Trump invited FBI Director Comey to a private dinner where he demanded "loyalty"—a request that deeply alarmed Comey. The crisis finally came to a head on February 13 when The Washington Post reported that Flynn had indeed discussed sanctions with Kislyak. That evening, Flynn resigned. The following day, Trump met alone with Comey and made a request that would later become central to allegations of obstruction of justice: "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy." Comey, stunned by this apparent attempt to interfere with an FBI investigation, immediately documented the conversation in a memo. By March 2017, the relationship between Trump and the institutions of justice was rapidly deteriorating. When Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation on March 2, Trump erupted in fury. "Where's my Roy Cohn?" he shouted at McGahn, referring to his former personal lawyer known for ruthless tactics. This outburst revealed Trump's expectation that his attorney general would protect him personally, not uphold the rule of law independently—a fundamental misunderstanding that would define his presidency and lead to increasingly dangerous confrontations with the institutions designed to check presidential power.

Chapter 3: Constitutional Crisis: Attempts to Fire Mueller (2017)

By May 2017, the institutional conflict between President Trump and the Justice Department reached a breaking point. On May 9, Trump fired FBI Director James Comey while he was speaking to agents in Los Angeles, with Comey learning of his dismissal from television news. The White House initially claimed the firing was based on Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's recommendation regarding Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation. However, Trump soon undermined this narrative in an interview with NBC's Lester Holt, admitting he was "going to fire Comey regardless of recommendation" and citing "this Russia thing" as a factor. The firing of Comey represented a seismic breach of institutional norms. Eight days later, facing intense public pressure, Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as Special Counsel to investigate Russian interference and possible obstruction of justice. When Trump learned of Mueller's appointment, he erupted in the Oval Office: "Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked." He berated Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, saying, "You were supposed to protect me." Just days after Mueller's appointment, Trump's impulse to eliminate threats to his presidency manifested in a shocking directive. While traveling in the Middle East on his first foreign trip as president, Trump called McGahn from Air Force One and ordered him to have Mueller removed as special counsel. Trump had concocted a three-pronged argument for why Mueller needed to go, including a frivolous claim about a dispute over membership fees at Trump National Golf Club. McGahn immediately recognized the recklessness of this request. "We'll look like we're still trying to meddle in the investigation," McGahn told the president. "I'm not the right lawyer to do that." Later that day, Trump called McGahn again, more insistent: "Call Rod, and tell Rod that Mueller has conflicts and can't be the special counsel," Trump demanded, instructing McGahn to call him back immediately after making the call to Rosenstein. McGahn had no intention of calling Rosenstein, believing that if he even broached the subject, the deputy attorney general might resign in protest, creating a "Saturday Night Massacre" reminiscent of the Watergate era. McGahn decided he would resign rather than carry out the order. He drafted a simple resignation letter and called his personal attorney, Bill Burck, who agreed with his decision. This pattern of attempting to remove Mueller continued throughout 2017, with Trump exploring various channels to achieve his goal. In July, he asked his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to deliver a message to Sessions, instructing him to give a speech that would limit Mueller's investigation to future election interference only. Lewandowski never delivered the message, uncomfortable with approaching Sessions about such a sensitive matter. These repeated attempts to fire or curtail Mueller's investigation represented a genuine constitutional crisis that pitted presidential authority against the rule of law. They revealed a president willing to abuse his power to protect himself from investigation, testing the resilience of America's democratic institutions. The crisis was averted only because individuals like McGahn refused to carry out orders they recognized as potentially catastrophic for the constitutional order. This episode demonstrated both the fragility of institutional guardrails and their dependence on individuals willing to risk their careers by saying no to the president.

Chapter 4: McGahn's Resistance: White House Counsel as Witness (2018)

By early 2018, White House Counsel Don McGahn found himself in an extraordinary position. As the chief legal advisor to the presidency, he was supposed to represent the office of the president, not Donald Trump personally. Yet he had become a key witness in Mueller's investigation into whether the president had obstructed justice. This created an untenable conflict that would define McGahn's remaining time in the White House. The dilemma began when Trump's legal team, led by Ty Cobb and John Dowd, adopted a strategy of full cooperation with Mueller's investigation. They believed this approach would bring a swift end to the inquiry, perhaps even by Labor Day 2017. Without conducting an internal review to understand what witnesses knew, they agreed to allow Mueller's team to interview senior White House officials, including McGahn. This decision stunned McGahn, who believed no other White House would hand over the aides closest to the president to prosecutors. In November and December 2017, McGahn sat for extensive interviews with Mueller's team. He proved to be an extraordinary witness—clear in his recollection of facts, seemingly truthful, and knowledgeable about how Trump's mind worked. Most importantly, he had created a paper trail documenting his interactions with the president. During these interviews, McGahn revealed Trump's attempts to fire Mueller and his efforts to pressure Sessions to retake control of the Russia investigation. The situation became even more complicated in January 2018 when The New York Times reported that Trump had ordered Mueller's firing but backed down when McGahn threatened to resign. Trump erupted in anger, calling McGahn and demanding that he issue a statement denying the story. McGahn refused, knowing that contradicting what he had told Mueller would be a lie that could expose him to legal jeopardy. Trump's pressure intensified in February when he summoned McGahn to the Oval Office. "I never said to fire Mueller," Trump insisted. "I never said 'fire.' This story doesn't look good. You need to correct this." What made McGahn's situation particularly complex was his own political agenda. As a committed libertarian who believed government had overreached in nearly every domain, McGahn saw Trump's presidency as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape the federal judiciary. He had negotiated unprecedented control over judicial nominations and was systematically filling the courts with conservative judges who shared his limited-government philosophy. This project was so important to McGahn that he was willing to endure Trump's erratic behavior to see it through. Behind Trump's back, McGahn had nicknamed him "Kong" or "King Kong," reflecting the president's destructive tendencies and volatile temperament. His uncle Paddy had once been Trump's lawyer in Atlantic City during the 1980s, eventually suing Trump over unpaid legal bills. Paddy had testified that he needed a second lawyer to shadow him at every meeting with Trump because "Trump lied so much." Now his nephew found himself in a similar position, creating paper trails and memos to protect himself from a president who showed little regard for truth or institutional norms. By August 2018, as Mueller's investigation intensified, McGahn's dual role became increasingly difficult to maintain. When confronted about his cooperation with Mueller, McGahn acknowledged, "I damaged the office of the president." Yet he continued to serve Trump, pushing through the nominations of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. His story epitomized the fundamental tension at the heart of the Trump presidency: how to uphold institutional integrity while serving a president determined to bend those institutions to his personal will.

Chapter 5: Justice Department Under Siege: Barr's Intervention (2019)

William Barr's return to the Justice Department as Attorney General in February 2019 marked a decisive turning point in the Mueller investigation. Long before his appointment, Barr had positioned himself as a critic of the investigation, writing an unsolicited 19-page memo in June 2018 arguing that a president could not obstruct justice through the exercise of his constitutional powers. This memo, which reached the White House, effectively served as an audition for the Attorney General position after Trump fired Jeff Sessions. Upon receiving Mueller's completed report in March 2019, Barr immediately moved to shape public perception before anyone else could read it. Rather than releasing Mueller's own executive summaries, which had been prepared specifically for public consumption, Barr issued a four-page letter that characterized the report in terms highly favorable to Trump. He quoted selectively from the report, notably truncating a sentence about Russian contacts with the campaign by omitting that "the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts." Most significantly, Barr declared that he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had determined there was insufficient evidence to establish that Trump had obstructed justice. This conclusion misrepresented Mueller's actual finding, which explicitly stated that while the investigation "does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him." Mueller had declined to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment due to Justice Department policy against indicting sitting presidents, not because the evidence was insufficient. Mueller himself objected to Barr's characterization, writing in a letter that Barr's summary "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office's work and conclusions" and created "public confusion about critical aspects of the results." This extraordinary rebuke from a special counsel to an attorney general revealed the depth of Mueller's concern about how his work was being portrayed. When the full report was finally released weeks later, its detailed evidence of obstruction stood in stark contrast to Barr's dismissive summary. The Mueller report identified ten potential instances of obstruction of justice by the president, including his attempts to fire Mueller through McGahn. However, citing Department of Justice policy against indicting a sitting president, Mueller declined to reach a conclusion on whether Trump's actions constituted criminal offenses. This ambiguous outcome reflected the fundamental institutional constraints that had shaped the entire investigation. Mueller, a by-the-book prosecutor and former FBI Director, operated within the boundaries of Justice Department regulations and constitutional precedent, while Trump had consistently pushed against these constraints. Barr's handling of the report's release demonstrated how a determined attorney general could effectively blunt the impact of even the most thorough investigation. By establishing a narrative of "no collusion, no obstruction" before the public could assess the evidence themselves, Barr created a perception that proved difficult to dislodge even after the full report became available. His actions represented a masterful exercise in expectation management and narrative control, revealing a fundamental weakness in the special counsel regulations: they gave the attorney general significant discretion over how findings would be presented to Congress and the public. The aftermath of the Mueller investigation demonstrated how deeply partisan the institutional conflict had become. Throughout his presidency, Trump continued to pressure the Justice Department to investigate his political opponents while attacking the FBI as corrupt and biased. Barr initiated investigations into the origins of the Russia probe, effectively turning the Justice Department's focus toward investigating the investigators. These actions demonstrated how a president, having survived a special counsel investigation, could emerge with his power enhanced rather than constrained.

Chapter 6: Aftermath: Impeachment and Institutional Damage (2019-2020)

The conclusion of the Mueller investigation in March 2019 did not end scrutiny of President Trump's conduct, but rather set the stage for an even more direct constitutional confrontation. Despite Mueller's detailed evidence of potential obstruction of justice, his decision not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment and Attorney General Barr's characterization of the findings effectively insulated Trump from immediate consequences. This outcome emboldened the president, who viewed the investigation's end as a vindication rather than a warning. Just one day after Mueller's halting congressional testimony on July 24, 2019, Trump engaged in conduct that would lead directly to his impeachment. In a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump asked for an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, appearing to condition military aid and a White House meeting on Zelensky's willingness to announce these investigations. This request came after months of behind-the-scenes pressure from Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who had been pushing Ukrainian officials to investigate the Bidens and promote theories about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. When a CIA analyst learned of this call through White House officials who had listened to it, he faced the same dilemma that had confronted others in the Trump era: what to do when the president himself appears to be misusing his power. Following established procedures, the analyst filed a whistleblower complaint that was deemed credible and urgent by the Intelligence Community Inspector General. When acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire initially refused to forward the complaint to Congress as required by law, the inspector general alerted the House Intelligence Committee to its existence. The whistleblower's actions triggered a rapid sequence of events. House Democrats, who had been reluctant to pursue impeachment based on the Mueller findings, now faced evidence of the president directly soliciting foreign interference in the upcoming election. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who had previously resisted calls for impeachment, announced a formal inquiry in September 2019. By December, the House had approved two articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate trial in January 2020 exposed the partisan nature of the impeachment process. Despite new evidence emerging during the trial, including revelations from former National Security Advisor John Bolton that Trump had directly tied Ukraine aid to investigations, Senate Republicans largely maintained their support for the president. On February 5, 2020, the Senate voted to acquit Trump, with only one Republican, Mitt Romney, voting to convict on the abuse of power charge. In the aftermath of acquittal, Trump moved aggressively to remove officials he viewed as disloyal, including the whistleblower's inspector general and witnesses who had testified in the impeachment hearings. Meanwhile, Attorney General Barr continued to intervene in cases involving Trump associates, including reducing the sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone and moving to dismiss charges against Michael Flynn. Career prosecutors resigned in protest, and thousands of former Justice Department officials signed letters condemning Barr's actions. The institutional damage from this period extended beyond the Justice Department. The State Department saw an exodus of career diplomats who had been sidelined or attacked for their testimony during impeachment. Intelligence agencies faced increased political pressure to align their assessments with the president's preferences. And the principle that no one is above the law—a cornerstone of American democracy—was severely tested when a president could avoid accountability despite substantial evidence of wrongdoing, simply because his party controlled the Senate.

Summary

The Trump presidency represented an unprecedented stress test for America's constitutional system and the rule of law. From the earliest days of his administration, Trump demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the presidency's constraints and a willingness to push boundaries that previous presidents had respected. His attempts to interfere with investigations, pressure law enforcement officials to target his enemies, and circumvent security protocols revealed a leader who viewed executive power as personal rather than institutional. Throughout this tumultuous period, a small group of officials like Don McGahn and initially James Comey attempted to serve as guardrails, trying to educate Trump about constitutional limits and prevent his most dangerous impulses from becoming reality. Their efforts highlight both the resilience and the fragility of American democracy—resilient because institutions and individuals were able to resist many of Trump's most extreme demands, but fragile because those guardrails depended on people willing to risk their careers by saying no to the president. The system proved capable of withstanding enormous pressure, yet the experience revealed how institutional constraints ultimately rely on individuals committed to upholding them, often at personal cost. As we move forward, strengthening institutional safeguards while fostering a culture of ethical public service remains essential to preserving the delicate balance between presidential power and the rule of law that has sustained American democracy for over two centuries.

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Michael S. Schmidt

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