Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The title is a little misleading. This really isn’t about Trump v. the United States. It’s about Trump and the Russia investigation--but particularly how two very different men (Comey and McGahn) acted as guardrails durng the investigation, standing up to Trump (in that context at least), to varying degrees. McGahn, a true believer in Trumpism, stood up only re: obstruction of justice--but, in that, he played a key role in the information Mueller's team used, giving them nearly 1000 pages of documents without Trump's knowledge. On the other hand, working with McConnell to push the votes and the Federalist Society to provide the conservative judges, McGahn was responsible for Trump's record number of conservative judges appointed to the federal bench--25% of them at present. These appointments satisfy his base, but are a scary thought for the rest of us as they will be there for decades to come. Comey's role was different from McGahn's. A Republican, he didn't vote in 2016 (feeling that voting conflicted with being FBI director). When Trump said over a private dinner, "I need loyalty", Comey dodged, and then documented and shared the inappropriate request with others in his leadership team. (Two years later, Trump had successfully targeted and pushed out everyone who had been on that team. Along with firing the FBI director himself, four months into Trump's presidency, and in the middle of Comey's 10 year term.) Two years later--the day after the midterm election--Trump also fired AG Jeff Sessions over the Russia investigation. Sessions, who had been part of the campaign, had recused himself from overseeing the investigation--a decision that angered Trump as being "disloyal" and "not protecting me". Trump wanted his "Roy Cohn"--a corrupt "fixer" who, in this case was hired by the American people, but would work to serve the political goals of Donald Trump. Schmidt reminds us that Trump found his Roy Cohn--and then some, given the AG's power--when he appointed William Barr.) Barr spun Mueller's report with the false narrative Trump wanted, "No collusion. No obstruction." When Mueller had a chance to testify and lay it all out for the American public--the lies, corruption, obstruction of justice, possible criminality--he basically refused. "I refer you to the report", he insisted, despite knowing that only 6% of Americans had actually read it. And so Trump survived the biggest scandal of any presidency--cheating with a foreign adversary to win and illegally obstructing the investigation of it multiple times. (Fortunately, he was so emboldened by Mueller's testimony, that he committed another impeachable offense the day after it, strong-arming the president of Ukraine to (1) cheat for him in falsely alleging dirt on Biden and (2) falsely exonerate Putin for cheating for him in 2016 and lie and say it was Ukraine instead. This led to a whistleblower complaint and, finally, impeachment--even though the Republican majority in the Senate acquitted him at the trial.) Schmidt is more interested in looking for heroes (relatively speaking) than corruption. His section about Comey is so laudatory--a man so earnest and upright and devoted to family--that it is almost an eye-roller. Especially for those of us who still blame Comey for going beyond FBI protocol TWICE -- once, taking it on himself to announce and interpret the end of the FBI's investigation of the Clinton emails and second, 11 days before the election, very PUBLICLY reopening the investigation and undoubtedly costing her the election in such a close race (where she won by 3 million popular votes). Schmidt is gentle on him about it and while Comey says the usual, "I hope it wasn't my fault", he still sounds unable to admit that he shouldn't have been the one to announce in July (it should have been DAG, if not AG) and shouldn't have made ANY announcement so close to an election, per FBI guidelines. It was pride, hubris, that did him in, something the former religion-chemistry major should take some responsibility for. His breaks with FBI protocol probably changed history.) At first, I was a little put off by just how saintly Comey comes across here (even testifying to Congress years earlier while recovering from a stage 3 diagnosis of colon cancer--and still wearing an ostomy bag while testifying!) But then I thought, "after being trashed publicly by the President for 3 years, including falsely smeared in tweet after tweet as a 'dirty cop', 'crooked cop, and even 'traitor', who could deserves some hagiography more than a lifelong public servant like Jim Comey?" Schmidt's narrative might seem a little over-the-top, but Trump's attacks have really been beyond the pale. Apparently, per Schmidt, Trump even pressured the DOJ to find a way to prosecute and "lock up" Comey and Clinton. It is shocking for example, and I think new, that Sessions had John Durham (the same U.S. attorney who is now "investigating" those conducting the Russia investigation for Barr) "open a leak investigation into Comey". As Schmidt notes, "The Trump administration was only two months old and the attorney general was already investigating the FBI director." As John Dean might say, "Worse Than Watergate". Cliff Simms (former comm team staff for Trump) titled his memoir of time in the WH, "A Team of Vipers". But Schmidt wants to find something redeemable among all the corrupt enablers and so highlights Comey and McGahn. (And, briefly, John Kelly. When Trump asks him to replace Comey and demands loyalty, Kelly refuses, saying "I'm loyal to the Constitution". Schmidt breaks this new piece of information, too) There are a lot of good scoops here and he frequently uses a lively first-person writing style, reminding us that he is a dogged New York Times journalist (and Pulitzer Prize winner). It's too bad the Senate intelligence committee report came out after this book. That report confirms that the Russia investigation was well founded, not a hoax and that Trump was complicit with the Russians and WikiLeaks in welcoming what they were doing, and even requesting it ("Russia, if you're listening....). The Republican-majority committee referred Kushner, Bannon, and Don Trump Jr. to the DOJ for investigation for possible perjury charges. It also concluded that Trump had probably committed perjury to Mueller's team, falsely saying he was unaware of Roger Stone's contacts and coordination with Assange and the WikiLeaks email drops to benefit Trump. Perjury--yet another Trump crime going unprosecuted--and little commented on. Note: Schmidt does make one significant mistake in his reporting/ He says that Mueller only asked Trump questions about the campaign. That's not true. The report makes it very clear that they also submitted written questions to him about the transition and presidency (both important re: obstruction), but Trump refused to answer any of them. And Mueller accepted that and let it go. Just like he didn't subpoena him. And just like he didn't get his financial records. Then Mueller refused to educate Americans about the detail and scope of Trump's wrongdoing that he had found when he had the public forum to do it. It remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of American politics how someone can get away with so much--so many different kinds of corruption and possible crimes--as Donald Trump does, while still having so much public support. This isn't the book that lays out the extent of that corruption as I hoped it would from the title. But he lets us see some of his own hard work tracking down sources and how these particular ones worked, largely unheralded, to try to preserve our democracy.