Your official role was leading the transition, trying to convince the then-candidate that he might win the presidency — and he was going to need a plan from Day One. You assembled 30 binders full of names of people to be considered for the top jobs, full of drafts of executive orders — 30 binders that you say got thrown in a dumpster right after the election. Literally in a dumpster? How do you know that?

I was told. I was told by the people that were there ... they made a ceremonial tossing out of that information and, by they, I mean Rick Dearborn and Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon. Now, I think to let me go is one thing, to get rid of the work of the 140 people that I led for six months was monumentally stupid — take me out of it. The work was not done by me, exclusively. It was done by 140 really dedicated, smart, qualified people. And I think that the administration has paid a price for that. The country has paid a price for that act of arrogance and that act of selfishness because they wanted to now be in charge of what was going to happen.

Here's what I keep wrestling with, with the collusion question. You say it's far-fetched. However, you and I are sitting here speaking just a few days after the arrest of Roger Stone, the sixth of the president's advisers to be charged in the Russia investigation. If there was nothing to cover up, why does everybody keep lying to the FBI and other investigators?

In my experience as U.S. attorney for seven years in New Jersey, dumb people and bad people lie all the time — all the time even when they don't have to — and I think when you look at this group of folks, this is not a group of of stellar folks with great integrity, I mean, and so I'm not surprised at their lying. I don't think you can draw the conclusion that, well, if they're lying they must be lying about something. At some point you have to come forward with evidence.