Insight and detail. His reporting of financial scandals. Political and legal affairs. A new york firm for several years. Helping launch the magazine. The wall street journal. Coverage in 1987. Of the stock market crash. The downfall of the investment banker martin siegel. He left the journal to help establish smart money magazine. Start writing for the new yorker for the past eight years he has been a columnist. Looking at the world of business a distinguished commentary in 2016. He is also a professor of business journalism at columbia university. He has written nine previous books. One grew out of his wall street journal coverage and delved into the Insider Trading scandal of the 1980s. Bloodsport about the Clinton White house and white house affair, blind eye about a doctor who was a serial killer, heart heart of a soldier in 2002 a single victim of the september 11 attack, disney ward 2005. His new book the handling of two investigations that were going on during the 2016 campaign. The other one which we all learned about later was the investigation of links between russia and the trump campaign. Donald trump investigation to some sort of sinister conspiracy by the deep state. Nebulous network of career bureaucrats and intelligence agents. Military officers and Law Enforcement officials on protecting their own power. Is there anything legitimate about this claim or are the attacks simply acts of obstruction meant to cloak his own illegal conduct . These are are among the questions. He performs an Important Service i just hope attorney general and anyone else who continues to tap the origins reads deep state. Please join me in welcoming jim stewart. [applause] thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you for having me. Thank god we still have bookstores like this supporting authors like me who can still go out and get to the bottom of things without fear, without any influence, without threats to be put in jail. As you are going over my increasingly long biography, you left out take few things. Three key characters in some way , haunted my journalistic career. They are Rudy Giuliani who i figured in my second book reappears and, yes, Hillary Clinton who was a central figure in bloodsport. Very prominently back. Not as well known, i had a brief period covering none other than donald trump. I was working as a wall street journal reporter. This was in about 1985. Omitted from trumps resume, he went through a brief and very unsuccessful. As a corporate raider. This is when he bought the trump shuttle airline. Making threats and taking over other airlines. As a routine part of my job i called above and said, can i meet you. Can i interview you. Come see me, but it must be completely off the record. I went to the trump tower. I was shown into his office. We worship we were chatting. So much for the completely secret meeting with me. She came in and he said, jane, i want you to meet this is soandso. 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 heard that this is james stewart. He has the most famous journalist in america. At which point i knew she was not the Richest Woman in the world. [laughter] charming and funny and kind of a mean way. But at the same time, i remember that interview. I was down to do more reporting. I mentioned i had to leave to catch the plane. He said right on my trump shadow. I will give you a free voucher. He said at least let my chauffeur drive you to the airport. I said, no, taxi, taxi is fine. A month after that, he was always trying to give me something. Tickets to this. A helicopter flight to atlantic city. Id no interest in going to atlantic city. I said no to all of these things a few months later, the wall street journal real estate reporter wrote a critical article about him and he stepped forward saying he took free tickets to the pride. He is all about leverage. I sensed out from day one. The background here is i is a journalist like to pursue mysteries. Questions that do not have any obvious answer. As the runnerup in the 2016 election was was taking place, as you all know, james comey stepped forward and said he was not recommending Hillary Clinton. He largely exonerated her. To reverse himself only days later. Days later saying we didnt find anything. That utterly mystified me. I did not know at the same time that donald trump was being investigated for the plot with the russians. When that emerged, i wondered why we knew all about this Hillary Clinton investigation. We never heard of peace about donald trump in russia. I did not understand that. I knew james comey. He had been an attorney in manhattan. He prosecuted Martha Stewart. A case i wrote about. I was very mystified by this. In may of 2016, i then tried to seek comey. The fbi by then was suddenly, no one was talking. I would go to the press office, but i could never talked to james comey. Out of the blue, i got an invitation to give a speech to the fbi in washington on friday of the week of may 9. I said, oh, oh, yeah, definitely. I will come and do that. I will drop on comey and see if i can enlist his cooperation in this book im trying to do. I wake up to the news that james comey was fired. So much for my plan to slip into the fbi and talk about writing a book. I thought, am i still supposed to go down there . Do you want me to come talk . Yes. Yes yes. Do come. I was there the friday after james comey was fired. It was horrible. People were completely shellshocked. Everybody at the fbi is thrilled i got rid of him. Nobody liked him there. People love me for doing this. I knew right away that was a preposterous idea. Everybody i met was completely demoralized. I dont think many people paid attention. In a state of shock. That is when i knew for sure. Whatever talk to me doesnt talk to me. Ive got to do this book. These are historic events. That is when i really decided to start work on the book. It is, of course, there were many events that happened after that. The whole whole molar investigation. All of that is in the saga. The other reason i like to write books is i love to read books. I love a good story. It is a great story. Love trump or hate trump, he is 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 are on a political level, but also a human level. Very compelling characters. The conflict really is between comey and trump. I cannot imagine two characters that are more different. I described trump as loose. I think that might be a complementary term. Comey is sometimes criticized for being overly virtuous. They are such polar opposites that im amazed david got through that first dinner without comey even quitting. There are a number of very important questions that i hope this saga helps to explain in a way that americans will trust. I am not a political reporter. I worked for the wall street journal which most people consider to be a conservative paper. I have worked for the new york times. I grew up in the world midwest where half the people were democrats and half were republicans. There was a real twoparty system. I was raised to do what is best for the American People. Dont look only at your best interest. The two biggest role models for me were probably abraham lincoln, he was on the license plate in illinois and the greatest the state has ever produced. Across the river where i grew up is the home of mark twain. One of the great storytellers of american literature. I sometimes when reading a book skip i want to read this to you because i love it so much. Patriotism is supporting your country all the time. And your government when it deserves it. Guess what. Donald trump tweeted that saying in 2014 before he was president. Now anybody who does not support him is part of the deep state. You would have thought this would have been laid to rest by now. When trump renounced his Election Campaign a few months ago, he spent part of the speech talking about the accomplishments of his first administration. The crowd showed no interest whatsoever. All of a sudden he decided he can read a crowd very well. Within a few minutes again they were all chanting lock her up. Lock her up. The Hillary Clinton story lives on. Let me assure you, Hillary Clinton investigated by the fbi. Very thoroughly. Strange reemergence of the emails on the laptop. A highly dramatic story. In the end, there is no question that classified information did move on an unprotected server through Hillary Clintons blackberry. It was probably negligent to have done that. I can barely cope with two or three email accounts. I would not have wanted another one either. I believe her when she said it was just for convenience. There was never a shred of evidence that said she herself knew any of this information had been transmitted. Lets say for the benefit of argument that maybe she did. There were people in the fbi the felt she could have been charged. Lets say you really wanted to push it or bring charges. Mishandling classified information are many. All involving men. There was an egregious example involving gonzales who is the attorney general under president bush. Guess what. None of these people were ever charged under the statue. There are a handful of other cases that are misdemeanor which resulted in no prison term. A slap on the wrist. No Government Official had ever been charged under the statute. What would have happened if the fbi decided to recommend charges against Hillary Clinton at the time she was the first woman candidate for the presidency. There would have been an incredible and justifiable uproar at this. By the way, james comey was very consistent with this. He never charged Martha Stewart with Insider Trading. Although he could have. He did not want to be attacked for bringing novel charges against a successful woman. There would have been a massive uproar. Charging Hillary Clinton then. I think that there really could be no serious disagreement if the right result was reached in that case. I want to Say Something else about hillary. I was very critical. So much so they have not spoken to me since then. How did mrs. Clinton respond when she became the subject of a publicized fbi investigation of potentially criminal conduct. Did she call it a witch hunt . 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 provide evidence. They answer all the questions anyone had to ask. She turned over tens of thousands of those emails for examination. I would contrast the way that trump responded when he became the subject of the rush investigation. A very interesting question. It unfolds in the page of the story. Remember the sequence of events. July 5 he said we are not recommending any charges. Trump trying to keep it alive. It didnt have legs. Suddenly in october, 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. You could not make any of this up. Through these bizarre facts, suddenly there were only two emails that had to be investigated. Comey for reasons you will see in the book. He was reopening that. One reason he did that was because there was a hardcore of antihillary fbi agents in the new york office. Everyone in new york knew it had been found. I can tell you with 100 certainty, if comey would not have made that announcement, it would have leaked. If it emerge through the media and leaked that this had been uncovered and the American People had not been told. I remember being at a Board Meeting in the midwest. 60 of the people in the room were moderate republicans. Having a hard time coming to terms voting for donald trump. It was like a cold wind swept through the room. I could tell the feelings against hillary just crystallized. Nate silver did a very indepth survey to show how just a few key both 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. We cannot go back and rerun the election. I think to blame it all on james comey the unfortunate fact for Hillary Clinton is, when it was reopened, she had a decades long history of being accused of selfserving, at times, illegal behavior. Still questions about whitewater questions about the white house. Questions about how she covered up her husband. This narrative. That was not comeys fault. Days later, he was able to exonerate once again. The media shows very little interest. I demonstrate here that after the emails were first found, that was the lead story a Major Network news for six out of the next seven days. When he announced that it was now closing and they had not found anything on the emails, it was not the lead story in 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 gun in a crowd. A story that nobody would remember except for the fact that they went and looked at backup. That overshadowed clintons exoneration. I dont think you can blame that on comey. Was he wrong to take matters into his own hands . That is why he had to then make the announcement all over again. The reasons for that are fascinating. You see it in context in the narrative. I think that that is probably the most controversial thing that he did. I would have urged him not to do it. At the time, he was very concerned that the American People would feel a verdict rendered was partisan and not be fair. There was reason for that. Loretta lynch had said a few things that made him suspicious. President obama had dismissed it as not a significant investigation. The thing that really put him over the edge when bill clinton barged on Loretta Lynch is playing, sat there and stay there for 35 minutes. That became public. He had intervened with his wife investigation. I do have, i believe, the most detailed account of what actually happened on that airplane. My heart goes out to Loretta Lynch. She is a very nice person. A very polite lady. Just when she thought she was going to get them off, she cleared the bags away and spent another 15 minutes talking. Unfortunately, the parents were so bad. It went on for so many days about how he had intervened. That is what really made them think he came forward to do it. You cannot really quarrel with the motive. I have to wonder, i am sure bill clinton was not consciously trying to sabotage his wifes campaign. If he was, this was the single thing he could have done to do it. Okay. One of the central characters is the general. He was the longestserving u. S. Attorney in the country. He has been the u. S. Attorney for maryland in baltimore. Somebody asked comey what he thought. He is a survivor. Rosenstein was also highly respected. Considered to be very independent. He stepped in to a Justice Department and a white house that was so untethered from standard norms of behavior from the rule of law that you see in these pages he became increasingly unnerved. You may recall that sessions recused himself from russia which met rosenstein was now in charge. Trump decides impulsively he is going to fire comey. He calls people into the white house. Im going to fire comey. Dont try to talk me out of it. He bring sessions and rosen then rosenstein said he mishandled the clinton administration. Trump immediately perks up. Can you write me a memo . Critical of comey and the clintons. He hands it back to the white house. All of a sudden, trump, who had already decided to fire comey for reasons completely unrelated grabs a memo and says, yes, this is a reason he must be fired. The White House WhiteHouse Press Corps went out and said the Justice Department insisted that comey be fired because of the way he handled the clinton investigation. And then trump called up rosenstein and said i want you to go out and do a press conference and say you were the one that insisted comey be fired because of the clinton thing. At this point rosenstein is incomplete shock. It was not because of the clintons that trump wanted to fire comey. It was not his idea. To his credit, he refused to do it. Trump had to get sessions to pressure him. No. That is a false narrative. Days later, rosenstein calls Andrew Mccabe over. He has become the active fbi director since comey was fired. Ii want to read a brief passage. Talking about something relative and oculus. I report as follows. Rosenstein his eyes look glossy, his voice wavering, his eyes. Up. He said he could not believe what was happening. The white house was making it look as if it was his idea to fire comey. The president asked him to write the memo only after he found out he was firing cold me. Mccabe shocked. Essentially calling the president a liar. They barely knew each other. He wanted to be compassionate. Are you okay . No. Are you getting getting any sleep . No. Is your family okay . There were news trucks parked outside of his house. His wife and family were upset. There is no one here i can talk to about this. There is no one that i can trust. He seemed to be struggling to hold his emotions in check. He asked if mccabe thought he should appoint a special counsel. Mccabe said yes. It would be a good idea. He always considered jim comey is 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. This is a guy he just fired. There is a sequence of events where rosenstein offers to wear a wire to secretly record the president. By the end of the molar investigation, he is the new person. He has survived. Two occasions whe