Fear. Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward

Author:Bob Woodward [Woodward, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crónica, Comunicación
Publisher: ePubLibre
Published: 2017-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

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On July 20 Bloomberg dropped an apparent bombshell: Mueller was investigating Trump’s finances including “Russian purchases of apartments in Trump buildings . . . the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow and Trump’s sale of a Florida mansion to a Russian oligarch in 2008.”

Dowd called Quarles to ask about the story.

“Well,” Quarles said, “Bob never comments.”

“Give me a break, pal,” Dowd replied angrily. “I’m taking care of you, now you take care of me.” As they both knew, “a denial from the White House doesn’t get anywhere.” Dowd continued, “The deal was, with you guys, if you guys added to the investigation, we’d get a heads-up first.”

“That’s right.”

“Because you gave us the subjects to cover,” Dowd said. “And every once in a while you guys add things and we put it on a list. I didn’t hear about condos in Florida or selling this estate.” Dowd said he was aware of some matters under investigation in New York about Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and Felix Sater, who tried to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow. “You know, Jimmy,” Dowd added, “when you ask me a question, I give it all to you. So I need a better explanation.”

“John, let me put it this way,” Quarles said. “I’m 99 percent sure that it’s not us.”

“I got it,” Dowd said. He immediately called the president, knowing when that kind of story broke Trump could not focus on anything else. Trump was apoplectic.

“They’re not investigating that stuff,” Dowd said, trying to reassure him. But Trump was not trusting at all and sounded like he could find no comfort.

Four days later Dowd met Quarles on a stone bench outside the Patriot Plaza where Mueller had his offices.

“Bob and I owe you one,” Quarles said. “Bob says don’t believe what you read in the papers.”

“I got it,” Dowd replied.

“We are really embarrassed,” Quarles said.

“Why?”

“You’ve delivered more than you promised, and we’re so pleased. We’re moving along. We’re getting it done. And there’s a lot of stuff here to organize, but it came very well organized. We didn’t have to go hunt and peck. You didn’t drown us.”

Dowd knew about a target of a tax investigation who had once told the FBI that the answer to their request was somewhere in two warehouses. The agents spent years searching.

“But let’s agree going forward,” Dowd said. “I don’t want to play cat-and-mouse. You’re not on my end of the stick. I got a guy that wants to know yesterday,” and Trump’s “instincts are it’s bullshit.” Dowd added that he had checked with the Trump Organization, and they had denied they were being separately investigated. They’d received no requests for documents or interviews—standard preliminary steps. “And they said, as far as we know, it’s bullshit.” All the organization’s projects were eight or nine years old. There were no issues. Whatever Mueller wanted to see was out there in the public record someplace.

Dowd had told this to the president. “I know that, goddamn it!” Trump had said.

Dowd continued with Quarles.

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