Breaking the Comey News, One Sentence at a Time
Reporting in the midst of chaos
My email to my Washington bureau colleagues contained just two, urgent words: “Comey fired.”
A few minutes earlier, I had arrived at the White House just in time to meet the 6 p.m. deadline to turn in my passport and visa applications for President Trump’s first foreign trip next week.
I walked through a mostly-deserted press briefing room — news was pretty slow at that moment — and into the cramped office known as Lower Press, where White House press aides sit. There, I saw Sean Spicer, the press secretary, huddled over a computer, with all his assistants crowded around him.
They looked up at me and gruffly suggested I leave.
“I have to drop off my passport,” I mumbled. One of them grabbed the envelope and told me to close the door on my way out.
Something was clearly going on. After a few minutes, Mr. Spicer opened the door and announced to me and the half dozen other reporters who were nervously waiting that something important would be in our inboxes momentarily.
NBC’s Hallie Jackson pushed him to share more as we all checked our email and saw nothing. Mr. Spicer pointed to ABC’s Jon Karl.
“It’s your question from the briefing,” he said, smiling.
“Comey?” Mr. Karl offered, recalling that he had asked Mr. Spicer whether the president still had confidence in the F.B.I. director.
Mr. Spicer smiled broadly and put his finger on his nose. Repeated pleading from me and the handful of reporters persuaded him to say more: The president had accepted the recommendation of his attorney general and deputy attorney general to terminate the F.B.I. director.
We were instantly frantic. No one responded to my two-word email, sent at 5:41. One minute later, I typed out another one (filled with typos) on my iPhone, this time to three editors and Matt Apuzzo, our veteran Justice Department correspondent.
“PResident trump has dismissed FBI Director I’m comey on the recommendation of the attorney general, Sean spicer, the White House press secretary said Tuesday.”
Hearing nothing, I called Elisabeth Bumiller, our bureau chief.
“Is this confirmed?” she asked.
“Yes! Sean just said it. Go. Put it up!” I yelled.
So after fixing the spelling errors, the team at the bureau posted my one-sentence story by 5:48, well ahead of almost all our competitors.
Still nothing in our email inboxes. White House press staff members hurriedly passed out printed copies of the president’s termination letter and letters from the Justice Department officials.
Since I had arrived without my laptop (I won’t be doing that again) I pecked out a few sentences on my phone and sent them to an ever increasing number of reporters and editors at the bureau. I also photographed the four pages of the handout and sent the pictures to my colleagues.
By then, a crush of reporters had surged into the briefing room from their cubicles. Mike Dubke, the White House communications director, told the much larger cluster of reporters that Mr. Spicer would most likely hold a “gaggle” — an informal news conference — within about 15 minutes.
That never happened. Reporters waited for about an hour, during which time I continued to file parts of the story — a few paragraphs at a time — thanks to Doug Mills, the veteran New York Times photographer, who had given me his MacBook to use.
A deputy press secretary came out to assure reporters that Mr. Spicer had decided against holding a briefing that night. No White House officials would be making any comments until Wednesday — a decision that appeared to change later in the evening, when Mr. Spicer and several other White House officials appeared on cable news programs to defend the president’s decision.
But armed with that assurance, and with officials blocking reporters who tried to visit Upper Press, where Mr. Spicer’s office is, I returned to the Times bureau, a short walk from the White House.
I spent the next four hours working with Mr. Apuzzo to develop a more complete story that would end up leading the website and the newspaper: “TRUMP FIRES COMEY AMID RUSSIA INQUIRY.”
The next morning, my 14-year-old daughter, with whom I was watching MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” looked at the TV, puzzled.
“I thought the president already fired someone,” she said.
I started what would have been a long and difficult explanation, since I hadn’t yet had my second cup of coffee, but my son came down to drive them both to school.
Saved by the bell.
Michael D. Shear is a White House Correspondent for The New York Times.
Cover photo credit: Doug Mills/The New York Times. Originally featured in The New York Times. See the full piece here.
