The Mueller report is that rare Washington tell-all that surpasses its pre-publication hype.
Sure, it is a little longer than necessary. Too many footnotes and distracting redactions. The writing is often flat, and the first half of the book drags, covering plenty of terrain that has been described elsewhere. The story shifts abruptly between riveting insider tales and dense legalisms. Its protagonist doesnt really come alive until halfway through, once Volume I (on Russian interference) gives way to Volume II (on obstruction of justice). The title far too prosaic, really feels like a missed opportunity. And it hardly helps that the books earliest reviewer, Attorney General William Barr, seems to have willfully misunderstood the point of it; he probably should not have been assigned to review it at all.
Yet as an authoritative account, the Mueller report is the best book by far on the workings of the Trump presidency. It was delivered to the attorney general but is also written for history. The book reveals the president in all his impulsiveness, insecurity and growing disregard for rules and norms; White House aides alternating between deference to the man and defiance of his crazy s requests; and a campaign team too inept to realize, or too reckless to care, when they might have been bending the law. And special counsel Robert Mueller has it all under oath, on the record, along with interviews and contemporaneous notes backing it up. No need for a Note on Use of Anonymous Sources disclaimer. Mueller doesnt just have receipts he seems to know what almost everyone wanted to buy.
Befitting a best-selling work of political nonfiction less than 24 hours after the report went online Thursday, paperback versions took the top two spots in Amazons new-release sales ranking the Mueller report has its miniseries-ready signature moments. There is the obligatory expletive for the ages, when President Trump learns that Mueller has been appointed as special counsel. This is the end of my presidency, he moans. Im fucked. There is the embarrassing contradiction from the presidents press secretary, Sarah Sanders, who told reporters that countless FBI employees loved the firing of director James Comey but then admits to investigators that shed made it up. (Though, in truth, its only embarrassing if Sanders maintains any residual capacity for said emotion.) Theres the contrast between the presidents public bluster, evident in his Twitter rants, and his private diffidence, embodied in Trumps lawyerly written responses to Muellers queries, full of I do not recall and I have no recollection.
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2019/04/20/excellent-reads-the-washington-post-takes-much-deserved-victory-lap/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/