A must-read book covering the former administration from the beginning up through the events that led to the first impeachment.
This book covers t***p's presidency up to the point of the first impeachment. It starts pretty much on day 1, talking about Spicer's rant about inauguration size, and covers some things from before t***p was sworn in (basically his fawning over Putin and wanting a meeting between the two set up ASAP). The end of the book details the Ukraine call and the fallout from it with reactions by people who listened to the call, or people who talked to those people. Pretty much everything in between, with a heavy focus on the Mueller investigation and report is included.
The authors pretty much stuck to a "facts only" presentation of material, relating first or second-hand accounts of how various meetings, conversations, and the like, played out. There was not a lot (although there was some) commentary on t***p himself by the authors. Every here and there, they did make comments, but for the most part, they were quoting others. The sum total of the material in the book portrayed t***p to be a stupid, lazy, arrogant, self-centered, brat. Basically, a toddler in a 73-year-old's body, who never wanted to do the job of President, just to have the title. Some of the things that make me say it is a bit scary are the details of how the national security team had to dumb down the briefing material for the Orange Shitgibbon because he was too lazy to read it and too stupid to understand anything when they were written as a report like every other President had received them. He basically needed flashcards and was too lazy to even look at those. Also, he thought he knew everything about every topic better than any expert, which resulted in Tillerson calling him a "fucking moron". You get the impression that pretty much everyone hated working for him, but felt things would be worse if they resigned (which is why Mattis held on as long as he did).
The last third of the book really delves into the Mueller investigation and report, and the fallout from Mueller not making a prosecution recommendation. Apparently, it was Mueller's call to present just the facts and leave it to others to decide what should be done going forward. According to their reporting, even Barr was amazed that Mueller punted on the issue of obstruction of justice, and Barr then sauntered through that wide-open door to mischaracterize the report's conclusions, which ticked off Mueller, so much so that he wrote a letter to Barr (and then a follow-up phone call) complaining about his summary. It is clear that the authors had someone from the Mueller team providing them information since they detailed the in-fighting between members of the team who thought that they should spell out that t***p obstructed justice and recommend prosecution and those that wanted to just present a factual narrative and not take a position one way or the other.
Overall, the book is well-written and sourced. Of course, many of the sources did not want their names used, although, with some hindsight and reading between the lines, it is easy to figure out who some of them could be. Many of t***p's cult members decry the use of unnamed sources despite the fact that t***p himself has been an unnamed source when he wants to put out information that is good (the book includes at least one example of this), not to mention his multiple rants that start "many people are saying" followed by a stream of made-up nonsense. So, the book will not be something that the MAGAT cult members and Q nuts will be interested in reading, but for anyone else, it shows just how ill-prepared, ill-equipped, and out of his depth the Orange Genital Wart was, and that he should not have ever been, nor should he ever again be, near the office of the Presidency.
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