Remember her name, mrs. Soandso from the philippines. He said, she is the Richest Woman in the world. I thought the queen of england was the Richest Woman in the world. But who knew. He turned to her and said mrs. Soandso, this is james stewart. Hes the most famous journalist in america. [laughter] at which point i knew she was not the Richest Woman in the world. [laughter] he can be charming and funny in a mean way. But at the same time, i remember that interview i was on my way to washington to do more reporting and i mentioned i had to leave to catch the plane. He said, right on my trump shuttle i will give you a free voucher. I said no, mr. Trump, i couldnt possibly do that. He said at least let my chauffeur drive you to the airport. I said no, a taxi is fine. We are all the same traffic. For weeks and months after that he was always trying to give me something. Tickets to this, going to the a a helicopter flight to atlantic city, i had no interest in going to atlantic city. So i said no to all these things. Which was just as well because a few months later the wall street journal real estate reporter wrote a critical article about him and he immediately stepped forward and said, he took free tickets to the prizefighter and the guys career was over he ruined him. Hes all about leverage. I sensed that from day one. Anyway. Deep state, the background is i as a journalist like to pursue mysteries. Questions that do not have any obvious answer. As the runup to the 2016 election was taking place as you all know james comey, head of the fbi stepped forward and said he was not recommending charges against Hillary Clinton, he largely exonerated her, only a few months later just days before the election to reverse himself and then days later saying we didnt find anything. I will come back to some of those events later. That utterly mystified me. Like other americans i did not know that donald trump was being investigated for a plot with the russians. When that emerged i wondered, why do we know all about the Hillary Clinton investigation we never heard a peep about donald trump and russia. I didnt understand that. I knew comey, i had met him, he was in my last book about perjury and lying. He prosecuted martha stewart. I knew him, i had a lot of confidence in him but i was very mystified by this. Thats the kind of thing i like to explore. In may 2016 i had been trying to see comey. The fbi by then was highly paranoid. There was already conflict with the white house. Suddenly nobody was talking. Nobody would take your phone calls. I would go to the press office but i could never talk to comey. Everybody acted like they thought their phones were wiretapped. Out of the blue i got an invitation to give a speech to the fbi in washington on friday of the week of may night. I said, yes, i will come down to that. I figured i would drop in on comey and see if i could enlist his cooperation in the book im trying to do. Monday i wake up, tuesday i wake up, to of course the news that comey was fired. So much for my plan to slip into the fbi and talk to him about writing a book. Then i thought, and mice was to go down there . I called up and said to him if you want me to come talk and they said yes. So i did. I was there the friday after comey was fired and it was horrible. People were completely shellshocked. Trump was then and there out saying everybody at the fbi is thrilled i got rid of him. Nobody liked him there. People love me for doing this. And i knew right away that was a preposterous idea. Not that i had interviewed every Single Person at the fbi but everybody i met was completely moralized. I dont think many people paid attention to my talk but i had lunch with a lot of them afterwards and they were truly in a state of shock that these events had transpired. Thats when i knew for sure whoever talk to me doesnt talk to me, ive got to do this book because these are historic events. They are still the mysteries about while this is happening. Thats when i really decided to start work on the book. It is of course, there were many events that happened after that. The Mueller Investigation, the resolution of that, all of which is in the saga. Another reason i like to write books as i love to read books. I love a good story. This to me is a great story because it has great characters. Love trump or hate trump, hes a great character. Even though he did not agree to talk to me for this book, he tweets all the time. His voice, his unfiltered voice, does emerge in the pages of the story. The other characters i think also are both on a political level but also on a human level very compelling characters. The central conflict really is between comey and trump. I cant imagine two characters who are more congenitally different. I described trump as louche, i think that might be a componentry term. [laughter] comey is sometimes criticized for being overly virtuous. They are such polar opposites that im amazed i even got to the first dinner without comey even third quitting or trump firing him. But there are a number of very important questions that i hope that this to saga helps to explain in a way that americans will trust. Im not a political reporter, im not a partisan person, i worked for the wall street journal, which most people consider to be a conservative paper. Ive happily worked at the new york times, which many people consider to be a liberal paper. I grew up in the world arural midwest were half were democrats, half republicans, a twoparty system. I was always raised to try to do whats best for the American People. Dont look only at your own self interest, act in a way thats best for all and tell the truth. The two biggest role models for me were probably abraham lincoln, who on the license plates in illinois and still hailed as the greatest native a and across the river from where i grew up in missouri is the boyhood home of mark twain one of the greatest storytellers of american literature. Sometimes when reading a book i skipped the alpha graph but i wanted to read this alpha graph to you because i love it so much. Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it. Thats from mark twain. Guess what . Donald trump tweeted that saying in 2014 before he was president. Now anybody who doesnt support him as part of the deep state. He has certainly changed his tune. Some of the Big Questions here, which i tried to address, lets start with this abshould hillary have been charged in the email case . You would have thought this would have been laid to rest by now. I dont know if you noticed that when trump preannounced his Election Campaign a few months ago in northern florida he spent part of the speech talking about the accomplishments of his first administration. The crowd showed no interest whatsoever. They were looking at their cell phones, wondering, looking at the sky. All of a sudden he decided he can read a crowd very well, he pivoted to Hillary Clinton and it was like a jolt of electricity went through the crowd. Everybody was bolted upright and with a few minutes they were all chanting lock her up. The Hillary Clinton story lives on. Let me assure you that Hillary Clinton was thoroughly investigated by the fbi. Very thoroughly. The story of how that happened, the strange reemergence of the emails on the laptop, its a highly dramatic story. But in the end there is no question that classified information did move on an unprotected server through Hillary Clintons blackberry. It was probably negligence to have done that but all honesty i can tell you i can barely cope with two or three email accounts i would have wanted another one either. I believe her when she says it was her convenience. Most important, there was never a Single Thread of evidence that show that Hillary Clinton herself knew any of this information had been transmitted. Lets say, for the benefit of argument, maybe she did. That if you really wanted to push, there were people in the fbi who felt she could have been charged but lets say you really wanted to push it and bring charges, the president s in this area for mishandling classified information are many. They are almost all involving men and in some cases high placement. There was an egregious example involving alberto gonzales, who is the attorney general under president bush. Guess what . None of these people were ever charged under the statute. There were a handful of other cases that are misdemeanors which resulted in plea, no prison terms, slap on the wrist, but no prominent politician or appointed Government Official have ever been charged under the statute. What would have happened if the fbi had decided to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton at the time and she was the first woman candidate for the presidency . There would have been an incredible, in my view, justifiable uproar at this. By the way, comey was very consistent with this. He never charged martha student with Insider Trading although he arguably could have. There was no precedent for doing that, no circumstances, he did not want to be attacked for bringing novel charges against a successful one executive. There would have been a massive upward if he had in fact tipped to the election to trump by charging Hillary Clinton then. I think there is really to be no serious disagreement that the right result was reached in that case. I want to Say Something else about hillary, i was very critical of the clintons in my book so much so that the clintons have never spoke to me since then. How did mrs. Clinton respond when she became the subject of a publicized fbi investigation to potentially criminal conduct . Did she call it a witch hunt . No. Did she call people a deep state for prosecuting her . No. Did she attack the prosecutor and impugn their integrity . No. Hillary clinton behaved the way most innocent people do when they are charged, they trust in the system, they use whatever Legal Protections are at their disposal, but they provide evidence, the answer all the questions that anyone had asked and she turned over tens of thousands of those emails for examination. I would contrast that with the way trump responded when he became the subject of the russia investigation. In a very interesting question, it unfolds in the pages of the story, did comey cost Hillary Clinton the election . Remember the sequence of events in july 50 said we are not recommending charges the whole email thing seem to be dead. Trump was trying to keep it alive but it didnt have legs. Suddenly in october the weiner laptop, how bizarre is that, Hillary Clintons top aide put the emails on her husbands laptop. Her husband is engaging in illegal Sexual Activity with minors and it all comes out. They got the laptop. You couldnt make any of this up. Through these bizarre facts suddenly there were all these new emails i had to be investigated. Comey, for reasons youll see in the book, felt he had to make an announcement he was reopening that. One reason he did that was because there was a hardcore antihillary fbi agents in the new york office, the new york offices where the weiner laptop was. I could tell he was 100 certainty if comey had not made announcement, it would have leaked. It would have been so much more destructive both to Hillary Clinton and to the fbis repetition if it emerged through the media and leaked that this had been uncovered and the American People had been told that if comey stepped up and did it. I think its very hard to criticize the decision. I remember being in a Board Meeting in the midwest, i would say probably asked to percent of the people in the room were what i would call moderate republicans, having a hard time coming to terms with voting for donald trump. It was like a cold wind swept through the room. I could tell the feelings against hillary just crystallize like that and trump got a lot of votes at that moment. Nate silver did an indepth survey of a very narrow margin of the election to show how just a few key vote in states like pennsylvania, wisconsin, could have shifted it. He concluded that the comey announcement really was the determining factor. The fact is, we will never know. You cant run this like a science experiment. We cant go back and rerun the election without the variable of the thing being reopened. I think to blame it all on comey is a great over simple vacation. The unfortunate fact for Hillary Clinton is that when it was reopened she had a decades long history of being accused of selfserving, at times illegal behavior. There was still questions about whitewater, there were questions about the building records that showed up in the white house. There were questions about how she covered up her husbands philandering. There were questions about she had attacked other women. This narrative fell on fertile ground. That was not comeys fault. Days later through healing and efforts he was able to exonerate mrs. Clinton once again the media showed very little interest. I demonstrate here that after the emails were first found it was reopened that was the lead story in Major Network news and papers for six out of the next seven days. When he announced it was now closing and that they had not found anything on the emails it was not the lead story and a single news outlet. The lead story that day was that a group of people had rushed trump at a rally after someone had yelled the word gone in the crowd and it turned out the guy didnt even have a gun. A story nobody even would remember except for the fact they went looked it back up. That overshadowed clintons exoneration. I dont think you can blame it on comey. Was comey wrong to take matters into his own hands and exonerate clinton and not leave the decision to the attorney general . Thats why he had to make the announcement all over again when he did reopen it. The reasons for that are fascinating. You see it in context in the narrative. I think thats probably the most controversial thing he did and with benefit of hindsight, i wouldve urged him not to do it. But who has benefit of hindsight . He didnt have it. At the time, he was very concerned that the American People would feel a verdict rendered by the Justice Department was partisan and would not be fair. And there was reason for that. Loretta lynch had set a few things that made him suspicious, president obama had dismissed it as not a significant investigation, which he didnt like. But the thing that really put him over the edge was when will clinton barged onto loretto lynches plano as a matter of fact in phoenix, sat down, and stayed there for 35 minutes. That became public. There was rampant speculation he had intervened to affect his wife investigation. I do have, i believe, the most detailed account of what actually happened on that airplane. I have to say my heart goes out to loretta lynch, shes a very nice person. Shes a very polite lady. Bill clinton is a force of nature and he barged in there and just when she thought she was going to get him off he decides to clear the bags and sit down and spend another 15 minutes talking but it was not about his wife. Unfortunately, the appearances were so bad there was massive coverage of this that went on for days about he had intervened, trying to affect his wifes outcome. Thats what tipped comey into feeling that he could not inspire confidence in the American People unless he came forward to do it. I think you can quarrel with that decision but you cant really quarrel with the motor. Ive been fascinated by the clintons for so long. Im sure bill clinton was not consciously trying to sabotage his wifes campaign but if he was trying to sabotage his wifes campaign, this is the single best thing he could have done to do it. Okay. One of the central characters in here is rod rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney general. Rod rosenstein came to washington as the deputy he was the longest serving u. S. Attorney in the country who had been the u. S. Attorney for maryland and baltimore and when he was first appointed somebody asked comey what he thought of him and he said, which turned out to be quite hes a survivor. Rosenstein was also highly respected considered to be very independent, he would do the right thing. He stepped in to a Justice Department and a white house that was so untethered from standard norms to behavior to the rule of law and ethical behavior that you see in these pages he became increasingly unnerved. You may recall that sessions recused himself from russia which meant rosenstein was in charge of it. Trump decides impulsively hes going to fire comey. He calls people into the white house, he says im going to fire comey, dont try to talk me out of it. He brings sessions and rosenstein and says what have you think of me firing comey . Sessions it says its fine with me. Rosenstein said, i think they mishandled the clinton abhe mishandled the clinton administration. Trump immediately perks up and says can you write me a memo to that effect. Rosenstein writes a memo critically of the clintons and hands it back to the white house. All of a sudden trump, who had already decided on his own to fire comey for reasons completely unrelated to the clintons, grabs a memo and says, yes, this is the reason he must be fired in the White House Press corps went out and said the Justice Department insisted comey be fired because of the way they handled ahe handled the clinton investigation. Then trump called up rosenstein and said i want you to go out and do a press conference and say that you are the one who insisted that comey be fired because of the handling of the clinton thing. At this point rosenstein is in total shock. Because he knew, this is completely false. Its not because of the clintons that trump wanted to fire comey and it was not his idea to fire comey. And to his credit, he refused to do that. Trump tried to get sessions depressions absessions to pressure him and sessions says no. Days later, rosenstein calls Andrew Mccabe overcome Andrew Mccabe has become the acting fbi director since comey was fired. I want to read a brief passage, they were talking about something relatively innocuous and a report as follows b rosenstein gaze shifted toward the closed door to the room somewhere off in the distance. His eyes looked glassy, his voice wavering, his eyes tear up and he said he couldnt believe whato make it look as if it was his idea to fire true. The president had asked him to write the memo only after announcing he was firing comey. Rosenstein was obviously struggling to keep his emotions in check. Mccabe was shocked, ab they barely knew each other. He wanted to be compassionate. Are you okay mccabe asked . No. Are you getting any sleep . No. Is your family okay . Rosenstein said there were news trucks parked outside his house. His wife and family were upset. There was a pause. Then rosenstein said, there is no one here i can talk to about this. There is no one i can trust. Rosenstein seemed to be struggling to hold his emotions in check. After a pause he asked if mccabe thought he should appoint special counsel and mccabe said it would be a good idea. Rosenstein said he always considered jim comey a friend and mentor, someone he looked up to. The one person i wish i could talk to is jim comey. Good luck with that, mccabe thought. This is the guy he just fired. There is a sequence of events where rosenstein offers to wear a wire and secretly record the president and invoked the 25th amendment, all which is true. But by the end of the Mueller Investigation he is a new person. He has survived. There are two occasions the Justice Department was drafting press releases saying trump was going to fire him. He goes to the white house, he meets along with trump he comes out, his job is intact. As soon as the Mueller Report is delivered he and the new attorney general arush to state that trump is been exonerated. There is no crime, no obstruction of justice case to be made. This is not with the Mueller Report said, mueller wrote a letter to that effect as you probably know. The Mueller Report was far more damning than anything that barr and rosenstein was willing to say. This is an example it wellintentioned adrawn into this web of falsehoods of irresponsible if not illegal behavior and then are asked to protect the president and the president leverage being a theme because rosenstein lied about the wire and the 25th amendment, trump had leverage over him to fire him whenever he wanted. Finally, i just want to say and address the issue of the deep state, trump has again just this week accused the whistleblower of being part of the deep state, help the whistleblowing being part of the wood deep state. Not only part of the deep state, i could read the end of the book as he sang the same thing hes already said many times before, part of the deep state and part of atraders. He hasnt said it implicitly but he is implied that the punishment for traders should be, as it has been in the past, the death penalty. I want to say this about the deep state, its origins is from the middle east, turkey, egypt, where entrenched military industrial bureaucratic complexes from time to time would step in and overthrow sometimes the elected leader more often the dictator who was running a country in order to preserve their own powers and privileges. In the United States the deep state concept has been more recently used and in other variation on the militaryindustrial complex. The deep state was traditionally considered to be not merely people on wall street, the big bang, alden sachs, the lobbyist in washington, the large corporations, the Big Technology companies which wield enormous influence. Thats how it was translated in the United States context. Trump has webinars the concept to apply to the federal bureaucracy and specifically the fbi and the Justice Department and the intelligence communities. I never thought i would see the day where republican president turned on the Law Enforcement communities and branded them along with journalists like me as enemies of the people but that is what has happened. Comey said something very important and profound to me, which i quote in the book and that is that hed never heard this phrase deep state until trump started using it but if what he means is the men and women of the fbi and the Justice Department who devoted their lives to serving the American People who have taken an oath of allegiance to uphold the United States constitution and who do not work for the president of the red states and specifically this president , then thank god we have a deep state. These are important checks on the powers of the executive branch. We are a nation of checks and balances and one of those checks are bureaucrats appointed people, career civil service, it doesnt matter whether they are republicans, democrats, everyone has a political view, their duty is uphold the law, support the constitution and serve the people of the United States. When you have a whistleblower coming forward, when you have a james comey standing up to the president telling them he cant do Something Like that. Then you have the essence of what the constitutional system calls upon them to do. I think the deep state in this context is something we could all sleep easier knowing its in place and i would say good for them. He can watch James Stewarts entire talk on his book deep state tomorrow at 11 00 p. M. Eastern. Here is a look at some books being published this week. In trump versus china, former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich suggest that china possesses the greatest threat to the United States. Journalist Pamela Newkirk argues that Corporate Diversity initiatives have largely failed in diversity incorporated. In three days at the brink, fox news anchor bear recalls the duron conference a secret meeting in iran where franklin roosevelt, winston churchill, and Joseph Stalin planned military operations to end world war ii. And then it shouldnt be this hard to serve your country David Shelton describes his time as secretary of Veterans Affairs and the challenges he faced. Also being published this week historian hw branson recalls the settling of the American West in dreams of el dorado journalist joe stein contends that elitism and expertise serve important roles in society and his latest book in defense of elitism. And in edison the late pulitzer prizewinning biographer Edward Morris recalls the lesserknown achievements of inventor thomas edison. Look for these titles and bookstores in coming weeks and many of the authors in the coming future on booktv on cspan2. We are back live at the seventh annual wisconsin tribute or angela currently offered his thoughts on collusion and the 2016 president ial election. He is a portion of that program. You have an american citizen who they want to say is operating as an agent of russia. The only due process that american is ever going to get is if the Justice Department and the fbi play it straight with the court and the court forces them to comply with their own regulations, which include making sure you bring verified information only, to the court. If they dont follow their own rules and if the judge dont make them follow their own rules, then you basically have a drag map, you have surveillance going on against people who are presumed innocent and who have a full array of Constitutional Rights and they never find out about it. And what we found out in this investigation was, that was precisely what they did but they did it for the purpose of monitoring political campaign. Thats what this was about through and through. When i started to write what became ball of collusion. I had a different idea about what was going to be. I thought the way to do this was to compare the Hillary Clinton emails investigation with the trump russia investigation. And ask whether any object or person could look at both of them and say that the same degree of justice was afforded to both sides. [laughter] to take the case where they bent over backwards not to make the case, where they had a mountain of evidence of criminal activity. In the Mueller Investigation you lied to the fbi you got prosecuted, the clinton investigation you like to the fbi they give you a medal and immunity. No grand jury to speak of make all kinds of arrangements in the Mueller Investigation they showed up 6 00 a. M. Or before, if they need to break into your house they broke into your house but they grab the evidence they wanted. In the clinton investigation they said, pretty please . And if the person said no, they would make a deal to get the evidence but not look at it. Or not look at big sections of it. You are talking about a situation where they bent over backwards not to make a case. When they actually had real criminal evidence versus scorching the earth to try to find a case where there wasnt one. After two years they still werent able to do it. My idea was to try to compare these two investigations and just pose that question, whether you are liberal or conservative, whether democrat or republican, can you honestly look at these two investigations and say, by the way, these two investigations which were conducted by the same agents, the same investigators, the same Justice Department personnel, and say that they did blind justice . Theres not a chance. To watch the rest of the Program Visit our website at booktv. Org. Search for Andrew Mccarthy or the title of his book ball of collusion using the box at the top of the page. We are back live at the seventh annual wisconsin book festival. Here is former olympic figure skater adam rippon. [inaudible] one second adam. Im going to introduce you. [laughter] my name is connor moran, the director of the wisconsin book festival. Thank you all for coming to see adam rippon tonight