Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

What a sad commentary on our country that this book has reached (and remained) at the top of the Best Seller lists. The author, a renowned right winger who is also a lawyer, is more interested in demolishing Hillary Clinton and James Comey than in proving the Russia investigation is a hoax. In a surprisingly dispassionate, lawyer-like manner Jarrett succeeds quite effectively in exposing the deep flaws in HC's email practices and Comey's wretched handling of the HC investigation. It is too bad that he brings none of his lawyer-like skills to bear in whitewashing Trump's collusion/conspiracy with the Russians and the infamous Trump Tower meeting. Jarrett's horrific treatment of the collusion/Trump Tower issue reflects his strong desire to tell the Trump base what they want to hear. There can be no other explanation for his qualitatively different approaches to Clinton and Comey v. Trump. Two examples of Jarrett's false and misleading discussion of the Trump story suffice: One of Jarrett’s key arguments is that even assuming Trump “colluded” with the Russians, a charge which Jarrett duplicitlously denies, he claims that “’collusion’ is not a crime, except in antitrust law.” (p. xii). This is false in several respects, and is also quite misleading. “Collusion” is the legal equivalent to “conspiracy,” and indeed the antitrust laws criminalize “conspiracy,” not “collusion” (the word “collusion” does not appear in the Sherman Act). "Conspiracy" is a well established criminal offense, and applies to all federal (and common law) criminal offenses. Jarrett claims he is not a sycophant of Donald Trump (and says Trump himself will so confirm) (281) (all page references are to hardcover)), but Jarrett’s defense of the June 9, 2016 Trump Tower meeting proves otherwise. Jarrett claims that foreigners have a right under the U.S. Constitution to “provide information to political campaigns in U.S. elections.” (171). This is untrue, and Jarrett cites no provision of the Constitution to support this plainly erroneous assertion. In describing the infamous meeting, Jarrett falsely claims the Russian female lawyer who initiated the meeting “seemed mostly interested in pressing her case that Russian adoptions in the U.S. should resume.” (173). Jarrett does not mention that her stated goal was to convince the incoming Trump administration to lift crushing sanctions on Putin’s inner circle. In sugar-coating the meeting Jarrett also overlooks that President Trump authored a very misleading press release about the meeting, and lied about his role in writing the release. Trump's deceit shows consciousness of guilt. Finally, Jarrett gives short shrift to the federal election law prohibition on soliciting or receiving something “of value” from foreign nationals in the context of a campaign. Jarrett foolishly contends that “negative information about” (173) Hillary Clinton does not constitute a thing of value within the meaning of the statute. But Donald Trump Jr thought otherwise since he said he “loved” it, and the Russian lawyer thought the information sufficiently valuable to convince Trump to roll back sanctions should he win the election. Jarrett's selective treatment of the Trump Tower meeting is not due to sloppiness on his part. Jarrett showed very good lawyerly skills in putting forward very compelling, and damning, analyses of the decision no to indict Hillary Clinton and the many serious missteps by James Comey. Jarrett was quite thorough in connection with Clinton and Comey, but not in his coverage of the Trump Tower meeting. His selectivity regarding Trump Tower was willful disregard on his part of facts which were not consistent with the conclusion he had reached even before he put pen to paper. The true hoax here is not the Russian probe, but the book itself. President Trump endorses the book, but he could do so only because he does not read books. one critic of this comment argued that a conspiracy had not been established because i had not identified an underlying crime or an overt act. I replied to him as follows: "you are correct to point out that in order for there to be a conspiracy an underlying crime must be alleged, and that i failed to identify such a crime. allow me to fix that omission. the underlying crime is a violation of 52 usc 30121, which prohibits foreign nationals from contributing or donating a "thing of value" during a political campaign to a political party, and that it is illegal to solicit or receive such a "thing of value." Here Russians offered "dirt on HC," which certainly qualifies as a "thing of value," and the Trump campaign agreed to meet with the Russians in order to obtain that information. The conduct of the Trump campaign easily qualifies as a solicitation and as an overt act in support of a conspiracy to obtain that information. It is also the case that at least one representative of the Trump camp who attended the meeting, Paul Manafort, was sufficiently schooled in the legal specifics of federal campaign finance laws to know that such an effort on the part of the campaign was illegal, thus qualifying for potential criminal prosecution. It is irrelevant that the Russians did not have the goods, and that the underlying crime was not consummated. A prosecutable conspiracy does not depend upon the success of the underlying offense." **an earlier version of this comment showed me as being a "kindle edition" reader, when i am in fact a hard cover purchaser from Amazon and reader. One critic noted that i was, therefore, not a "verified purchaser." in fact, i am.