What do you think?
Rate this book
Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election
Volume I describes the factual results of the Special Counsel’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and its interactions with the Trump Campaig.
Volume II addresses the President’s actions towards the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and related matters, and his actions towards the Special Counsel’s investigation.
Volume II addresses the President’s actions towards the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election and related matters, and his actions towards the Special Counsel’s investigation.
448 pages, ebook
First published April 18, 2019
6692 people are currently reading
2332 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 624 reviews
April 18, 2019
The previous owner used a black highlighter on all the interesting bits and the main character has no redeeming qualities.
April 18, 2019
█ █████ ███ ██████████ ████
April 18, 2019
All the other reviewers are just Russian to conclusions.
April 19, 2019
This is a science fiction parody of a futuristic society that elects a reality tv star to run the government of a first world country. Characters are not well-developed and appear clueless throughout the story. The protagonist (or antagonist is what I'm thinking) is an irredeemable misogynistic racist narcissist that might be suffering from dementia.
Antics ensue with a cast of characters that run the gamut of want-to-be mobsters to russian dupes. The one star rating is because the plot stretches the imagination and the author expects us to suspend disbelief and buy in to the fact that a country could elect such an individual. Also, my copy was all marked up. Sorry Mr. Mueller, this just wasn't my cup of tea.
Antics ensue with a cast of characters that run the gamut of want-to-be mobsters to russian dupes. The one star rating is because the plot stretches the imagination and the author expects us to suspend disbelief and buy in to the fact that a country could elect such an individual. Also, my copy was all marked up. Sorry Mr. Mueller, this just wasn't my cup of tea.
April 18, 2019
The main character is a danger to the world, but ultimately gets away with his crimes as many supporting characters support his terrible behaviour
April 25, 2019
That mofo is guilty
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 11, 2020
I have decided to embark on a mission to read a number of books on subjects that will be of great importance to the upcoming 2020 US Presidential Election. Many of these will focus on actors intricately involved in the process, in hopes that I can understand them better and, perhaps, educate others with the power to cast a ballot. I am, as always, open to serious recommendations from anyone who has a book I might like to include in the process.
This is Book #21 (a re-read) in my 2020 US Election Preparation Challenge.
I purposely waited for the dust to settle with the media hype before choosing to read this piece. Now, with the threat of impeachment back and the reasons even more concrete, I wanted to see what Robert S. Mueller III, and those who worked with him in the Special Prosecutor’s Office, found during their lengthy investigation. While I choose not to examine all the specifics found within this massive tome, I would encourage anyone with the patience and curiosity to take the time to discover just how damning the facts can be when strung together in a powerful and #fakenews-free narrative, stemming from interviews of those closest to Candidate (eventually President) Trump. The language is legal and the footnotes alone could sink the Titanic, but it is a clear-cut report and offers what Mueller felt were the factual elements in order to create this substantial narrative. Mueller looks to make some links between Russia and their cyber-involvement in swaying the election, as well as numerous meetings between the Trump Campaign and the Government of Russia during the active presidential election. Mueller draws many assertions from the interviews he undertook and connects only those dots where the linkages are made by others. The mind-blowing assertions that come from this first volume of the report could never be cobbled together by the greatest fiction writer, they are too intense and there are too many. One can substantiate not only that Russia illegally tampered with the electoral process at the deepest levels, but also that there were countless meetings and dealings between members of the Trump Campaign and those in the highest positions of power in the Russian Government. These meetings and substantiated interactions have led many to be charged and jailed, including members of Trump’s most inner circle, all while working on his campaign or in his Oval Office. Whether the candidate himself was involved is not clear in the report, but Mueller does not indicate that there is a canyon that separates the two dots that require connecting.
The second volume of the report looks at the possibility that Trump obstructed justice in trying to meddle and interfere with the FBI investigation into Russian involvement, which might prove ‘juicier’ to some readers. While Mueller does not find Trump culpable, he also refuses to exonerate him, which is telling unto itself. Exploring the role that the FBI played and how former Director James Comey refused to dilute the investigation likely led to his firing is quite apparent, even if Trump says it was related to other business and poor morale. Mueller cites discussions and interviews, as well as public statements, made that contradict one another at every turn. Deeper in this volume, Mueller explores the actions of Trump and those around him, which proves even more troubling. The story changes with each passing day and there is no clear endgame, other than to ensure that the president is protected, something he demands from those around him above all else. Discussion spins into pushing then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to un-recuse himself so that he could steer the investigation in a ‘protect Trump’ direction, as well as discussions as to how to fire Mueller to stop the investigation from gaining momentum. Parallels to the Saturday Night Massacre are mentioned and those will knowledge of the event will likely not dismiss the connection. Still, Mueller could not find the needle in the legal haystack and could not cite definitively that Trump obstructed the investigation, according to the standards of law or legislation. This black and white approach, which may not sit well with some, may prove useful should any of this report be used during impeachment proceedings.
No one can say that I have hidden my dislike of the 45th President of the United States, even as I sit here on my (unwalled) side of the Canadian border. That being said, while I do follow some of the journalistic enemies of POTUS and listen to the stories that are churned out like rancid butter from Twitter, I can say that this report opened my eyes to many things I did not know and connected many dots about which I have only speculated. The strength of this piece is not only in its damning nature, but that it is extracted from facts and interviews with those closest to Trump. These are the people from his inner circle, who saw and experienced many of the things that find their way into this report. Sure, many may have lied, but even still, it blows my mind to see what has been revealed and the lengths to which certain people went to ensure this man made it to the Oval Office. America is suffering on the international front and, to a degree, domestically. There is heightened division and the democratic process seems to have brought about an oligarchy in short order. Looking at how Trump and his closest advisors sought to handle the obstruction allegations is baffling, humorous, and downright scary all at the same time. This is like a bad political thriller where the protagonist cannot keep his story straight from chapter to chapter. And yet, we are to believe that the tweet of the day is the new gospel. If I were that gullible, I would have rushed to ensure I had a Kool-Aid moustache at Jonestown. Things are a mess, the country is politically divided and there is no leader to bring them together. Divide and conquer is the new motto and only patience will bring about some truth, one can hope. I am reminded of the adage, ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire’ to offer up some context to all this talk of obstruction and Russian interference (as well as the larger view of anything the Administration finds troubling). The more Trump hears that he does not like, the more scapegoats he finds and caustic attacks he makes. What does he have to hide? Where is the leadership as people exert their right to speak freely? It seems Trump must always be on the defensive by being offensive to others, simply to deflect from truths as they leak out. Everyone knows that Trump suckles at the teat of Paranoia, and that he loves to ‘milk’ it for all its worth, but how long will everyone continue to allow this to happen? With 2020 just around the corner, Trump is surely lining up new friends and allies to infiltrate and cause havoc. It will be another mess and I can only hope there is someone out there to put the world out of its misery and send Trump back to suckle alone, laying on those Russian hotel beds he seems to love so much.
Kudos, Robert Mueller, for doing your country proud and not letting the threat of being fired or muzzled stop you from relaying the narrative as you knew it, through the facts you and your staff diligently collected.
Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
This is Book #21 (a re-read) in my 2020 US Election Preparation Challenge.
I purposely waited for the dust to settle with the media hype before choosing to read this piece. Now, with the threat of impeachment back and the reasons even more concrete, I wanted to see what Robert S. Mueller III, and those who worked with him in the Special Prosecutor’s Office, found during their lengthy investigation. While I choose not to examine all the specifics found within this massive tome, I would encourage anyone with the patience and curiosity to take the time to discover just how damning the facts can be when strung together in a powerful and #fakenews-free narrative, stemming from interviews of those closest to Candidate (eventually President) Trump. The language is legal and the footnotes alone could sink the Titanic, but it is a clear-cut report and offers what Mueller felt were the factual elements in order to create this substantial narrative. Mueller looks to make some links between Russia and their cyber-involvement in swaying the election, as well as numerous meetings between the Trump Campaign and the Government of Russia during the active presidential election. Mueller draws many assertions from the interviews he undertook and connects only those dots where the linkages are made by others. The mind-blowing assertions that come from this first volume of the report could never be cobbled together by the greatest fiction writer, they are too intense and there are too many. One can substantiate not only that Russia illegally tampered with the electoral process at the deepest levels, but also that there were countless meetings and dealings between members of the Trump Campaign and those in the highest positions of power in the Russian Government. These meetings and substantiated interactions have led many to be charged and jailed, including members of Trump’s most inner circle, all while working on his campaign or in his Oval Office. Whether the candidate himself was involved is not clear in the report, but Mueller does not indicate that there is a canyon that separates the two dots that require connecting.
The second volume of the report looks at the possibility that Trump obstructed justice in trying to meddle and interfere with the FBI investigation into Russian involvement, which might prove ‘juicier’ to some readers. While Mueller does not find Trump culpable, he also refuses to exonerate him, which is telling unto itself. Exploring the role that the FBI played and how former Director James Comey refused to dilute the investigation likely led to his firing is quite apparent, even if Trump says it was related to other business and poor morale. Mueller cites discussions and interviews, as well as public statements, made that contradict one another at every turn. Deeper in this volume, Mueller explores the actions of Trump and those around him, which proves even more troubling. The story changes with each passing day and there is no clear endgame, other than to ensure that the president is protected, something he demands from those around him above all else. Discussion spins into pushing then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to un-recuse himself so that he could steer the investigation in a ‘protect Trump’ direction, as well as discussions as to how to fire Mueller to stop the investigation from gaining momentum. Parallels to the Saturday Night Massacre are mentioned and those will knowledge of the event will likely not dismiss the connection. Still, Mueller could not find the needle in the legal haystack and could not cite definitively that Trump obstructed the investigation, according to the standards of law or legislation. This black and white approach, which may not sit well with some, may prove useful should any of this report be used during impeachment proceedings.
No one can say that I have hidden my dislike of the 45th President of the United States, even as I sit here on my (unwalled) side of the Canadian border. That being said, while I do follow some of the journalistic enemies of POTUS and listen to the stories that are churned out like rancid butter from Twitter, I can say that this report opened my eyes to many things I did not know and connected many dots about which I have only speculated. The strength of this piece is not only in its damning nature, but that it is extracted from facts and interviews with those closest to Trump. These are the people from his inner circle, who saw and experienced many of the things that find their way into this report. Sure, many may have lied, but even still, it blows my mind to see what has been revealed and the lengths to which certain people went to ensure this man made it to the Oval Office. America is suffering on the international front and, to a degree, domestically. There is heightened division and the democratic process seems to have brought about an oligarchy in short order. Looking at how Trump and his closest advisors sought to handle the obstruction allegations is baffling, humorous, and downright scary all at the same time. This is like a bad political thriller where the protagonist cannot keep his story straight from chapter to chapter. And yet, we are to believe that the tweet of the day is the new gospel. If I were that gullible, I would have rushed to ensure I had a Kool-Aid moustache at Jonestown. Things are a mess, the country is politically divided and there is no leader to bring them together. Divide and conquer is the new motto and only patience will bring about some truth, one can hope. I am reminded of the adage, ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire’ to offer up some context to all this talk of obstruction and Russian interference (as well as the larger view of anything the Administration finds troubling). The more Trump hears that he does not like, the more scapegoats he finds and caustic attacks he makes. What does he have to hide? Where is the leadership as people exert their right to speak freely? It seems Trump must always be on the defensive by being offensive to others, simply to deflect from truths as they leak out. Everyone knows that Trump suckles at the teat of Paranoia, and that he loves to ‘milk’ it for all its worth, but how long will everyone continue to allow this to happen? With 2020 just around the corner, Trump is surely lining up new friends and allies to infiltrate and cause havoc. It will be another mess and I can only hope there is someone out there to put the world out of its misery and send Trump back to suckle alone, laying on those Russian hotel beds he seems to love so much.
Kudos, Robert Mueller, for doing your country proud and not letting the threat of being fired or muzzled stop you from relaying the narrative as you knew it, through the facts you and your staff diligently collected.
Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/
A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...
May 31, 2019
[Free Justice Dept. PDF at https://www.justice.gov/storage/repor...]
[5/31/19 UPDATE: I thought it might be good to add my Facebook post following Mueller's address to the public.
Like a good book, this report has a solid structure: each section builds on the previous one, if you contemplate the stated facts.
We may think we already know most of the information in this report via the media, but reading the first section account of Russian interference in our elections by affecting our culture is a personal experience unlike hearing news. It is chilling to read about specific Russians masquerading as Americans, setting up organizations and rallies, and sowing lies that bloom and grow exponentially as they are repeated by the likes of Trump et al. as well as millions of ordinary citizens. If you read this blow by blow, you will experience the truth of the words “We were attacked.”
Mueller reports facts, but I believe metaphor is the best way to convey the impact of those facts to anyone who doubts we were attacked or to anyone, like me, who accepts that we were attacked (and that it is ongoing), but who hasn’t viscerally connected with what this means:
Imagine that alien beings infiltrated all of our communications grids. They became part of our phone conversations, the media we consume, and our culture. Imagine these aliens have studied our American culture and can mimic it, blending in so seamlessly that they can participate in our communities as any local does. They get to know people, learn their vulnerabilities, and craft just the right things to say to trigger their deepest fears and angers, thereby making these Americans unwitting alien surrogates, carrying the carefully crafted messages further into our culture to create maximum conflict (and—my opinion—eventually war, thereby changing the world stage because people will no longer wish for democracy if this is the result). Imagine these aliens infiltrate our voting mechanisms, knowing better than we do how they work and all kinds of statistics about the layout of our electoral college and what kind of pressure and persuasion will work best where.
Imagine that these aliens, who have been preparing for this time for many years, are essentially more psychologically sophisticated beings highly focused on a well-researched mission. They have observed us like cells in petri dishes. And after long preparation, they have now visibly manipulated us for motives that have nothing to do with our well-being and everything to do with destroying our standing in the world and thereby all alliances between countries, allowing them to do what they want unchallenged.
This is what has been going on and The Mueller Report makes you know and feel it!
Following the specifics of the attack is a section on Trump campaign contacts with Russia and Russians. I have no idea how much foreign contact is customary for potential candidates for office, but the enormity and sometimes secrecy of contacts between Trump surrogates, including people like Jared Kushner who had no idea or preparation for what he was doing, and Russian representatives is considerable. I can only assume that the sheer volume of them is yet another manifestation of the stealthy effort to infiltrate, building on the first section of this report—even if Trump did not conspire (offer a quid pro quo for help). Trump’s avarice (for business in Russia as a real estate developer) plus his amorality made him the perfect target, and his media megaphone simply turned the disruptive messages into a high-decibel weapon of mass disruption.
Any leader—even one who benefitted from these infiltration actions—should be alarmed for our democracy and our sovereignty. But this is not the case with Trump. I believe Mueller’s conclusion that Trump’s campaign’s actions did not meet the legal definition of conspiracy, although they gratefully received a lot of help that was offered from Russia via WikiLeaks and they even invited it. I accept that indictments against Trump Jr. et al. were precluded because they didn’t know that accepting foreign contributions of stolen documents was unlawful, and ultimately they failed to obtain them. But since the facts of this clear and ongoing attack have come to light, there has been an essential lack of a natural life-preserving patriotic response due to Trump’s need to see himself as a “winner.” Despite the fact that he won the election and holds the office of president, he apparently believes his “win” is so tenuous that he must do anything to kill any reality that makes him appear, in his own eyes, illegitimate.
Hence, vol. II of this report—a blow-by-blow record of his obstruction of justice, provable chronic lies, attempted manipulations, attempts to coerce witnesses by promise or intimidation, and attempts to order other people to lie, along with a roadmap for further action left to congress. (I read this section first, then on the entire document read-through, skipped or skimmed most of it because it repeated information I’d read in the media and in Comey’s book. And I did not read the last section, pp. 371-394, which is an analysis of law, obviously directed to lawyers who Mueller is assuming will take further action. I skipped most of the Appendices, except C which are Trump’s answers to questions, which can be summarized as: “I don’t recall.”)
This is a riveting read, and not that lengthy because of all the redactions. Also, you can skim those sections in the Russia connection section (e.g., Paul Manafort, although his level of quid pro quo and general amorality is jaw-dropping and sure sounds like conspiracy) and skip or read only headlines and analyses for the matters you’re familiar with from other reading. For me, the real impact came from the details of the attack in the first section.
To anybody who criticizes this report without reading it, I say: Please, please, please keep quiet until you’ve read it.
And to anybody—right wingers or left—who dismisses it without reading it because it does not find Trump guilty of conspiracy, I say: You are missing the point! This report was done because our country was attacked by a foreign power, and if you take the time to learn the facts, it might prevent you from falling victim to ongoing infiltration and attack.
Arguably, America’s most potent export is our culture—via our movies, music, and television. It has made the USA a place that people want to visit or live. It gives hope to people whose freedoms are crushed, and hope used to give the USA a certain standing in the world, no matter our considerable arrogance and flaws. So it doesn’t take brilliance for an adversary to take advantage of our arrogance by supplying zero-sum issues for us to be certain we’re right about and erupt in battle over. Marketing companies are filled with psychology experts who target us with similar tactics to sell product. This is not genius; it is simple psychology and marketing being used, after deep research into the mechanics of our system, to disrupt and destroy our culture, dividing people to conquer them. Thus far, Putin has probably been victorious beyond his wildest dreams. (In one of the most intriguing largely redacted exchanges on page 149, an unnamed probably Russian person emails a Russian oligarch just after Trump has won the election: “Putin has won.”) And it will get worse for us if we don’t understand what’s going on. Mueller spells it out. I hope more people will read this report.
[5/31/19 UPDATE: I thought it might be good to add my Facebook post following Mueller's address to the public.
When a writer or speaker opens with a very strong message, and then closes with the same, one can be fairly certain that is the point: We were and are being attacked by a foreign power.Now, my original review:
Isn't it astounding that somebody can write 448 pages detailing that, get up in front of national TV cameras and reiterate it, but what gets discussed is whether or not we should impeach an obstructionist.
If we took this attack seriously, what would we do differently? We might never post anything that is most likely sourced to a troll to divide us. We might cease calling one another names, blaming, fueling the national divide. Yes, we can ask our representatives to follow Mueller's directive to investigate further and likely indict once the perp is out of office, but nobody is listening to what Mueller is really warning of because we are all so brainwashed into "our side of right." Oh, how I wish people would read his damned report.]
Like a good book, this report has a solid structure: each section builds on the previous one, if you contemplate the stated facts.
We may think we already know most of the information in this report via the media, but reading the first section account of Russian interference in our elections by affecting our culture is a personal experience unlike hearing news. It is chilling to read about specific Russians masquerading as Americans, setting up organizations and rallies, and sowing lies that bloom and grow exponentially as they are repeated by the likes of Trump et al. as well as millions of ordinary citizens. If you read this blow by blow, you will experience the truth of the words “We were attacked.”
Mueller reports facts, but I believe metaphor is the best way to convey the impact of those facts to anyone who doubts we were attacked or to anyone, like me, who accepts that we were attacked (and that it is ongoing), but who hasn’t viscerally connected with what this means:
Imagine that alien beings infiltrated all of our communications grids. They became part of our phone conversations, the media we consume, and our culture. Imagine these aliens have studied our American culture and can mimic it, blending in so seamlessly that they can participate in our communities as any local does. They get to know people, learn their vulnerabilities, and craft just the right things to say to trigger their deepest fears and angers, thereby making these Americans unwitting alien surrogates, carrying the carefully crafted messages further into our culture to create maximum conflict (and—my opinion—eventually war, thereby changing the world stage because people will no longer wish for democracy if this is the result). Imagine these aliens infiltrate our voting mechanisms, knowing better than we do how they work and all kinds of statistics about the layout of our electoral college and what kind of pressure and persuasion will work best where.
Imagine that these aliens, who have been preparing for this time for many years, are essentially more psychologically sophisticated beings highly focused on a well-researched mission. They have observed us like cells in petri dishes. And after long preparation, they have now visibly manipulated us for motives that have nothing to do with our well-being and everything to do with destroying our standing in the world and thereby all alliances between countries, allowing them to do what they want unchallenged.
This is what has been going on and The Mueller Report makes you know and feel it!
Following the specifics of the attack is a section on Trump campaign contacts with Russia and Russians. I have no idea how much foreign contact is customary for potential candidates for office, but the enormity and sometimes secrecy of contacts between Trump surrogates, including people like Jared Kushner who had no idea or preparation for what he was doing, and Russian representatives is considerable. I can only assume that the sheer volume of them is yet another manifestation of the stealthy effort to infiltrate, building on the first section of this report—even if Trump did not conspire (offer a quid pro quo for help). Trump’s avarice (for business in Russia as a real estate developer) plus his amorality made him the perfect target, and his media megaphone simply turned the disruptive messages into a high-decibel weapon of mass disruption.
Any leader—even one who benefitted from these infiltration actions—should be alarmed for our democracy and our sovereignty. But this is not the case with Trump. I believe Mueller’s conclusion that Trump’s campaign’s actions did not meet the legal definition of conspiracy, although they gratefully received a lot of help that was offered from Russia via WikiLeaks and they even invited it. I accept that indictments against Trump Jr. et al. were precluded because they didn’t know that accepting foreign contributions of stolen documents was unlawful, and ultimately they failed to obtain them. But since the facts of this clear and ongoing attack have come to light, there has been an essential lack of a natural life-preserving patriotic response due to Trump’s need to see himself as a “winner.” Despite the fact that he won the election and holds the office of president, he apparently believes his “win” is so tenuous that he must do anything to kill any reality that makes him appear, in his own eyes, illegitimate.
Hence, vol. II of this report—a blow-by-blow record of his obstruction of justice, provable chronic lies, attempted manipulations, attempts to coerce witnesses by promise or intimidation, and attempts to order other people to lie, along with a roadmap for further action left to congress. (I read this section first, then on the entire document read-through, skipped or skimmed most of it because it repeated information I’d read in the media and in Comey’s book. And I did not read the last section, pp. 371-394, which is an analysis of law, obviously directed to lawyers who Mueller is assuming will take further action. I skipped most of the Appendices, except C which are Trump’s answers to questions, which can be summarized as: “I don’t recall.”)
This is a riveting read, and not that lengthy because of all the redactions. Also, you can skim those sections in the Russia connection section (e.g., Paul Manafort, although his level of quid pro quo and general amorality is jaw-dropping and sure sounds like conspiracy) and skip or read only headlines and analyses for the matters you’re familiar with from other reading. For me, the real impact came from the details of the attack in the first section.
To anybody who criticizes this report without reading it, I say: Please, please, please keep quiet until you’ve read it.
And to anybody—right wingers or left—who dismisses it without reading it because it does not find Trump guilty of conspiracy, I say: You are missing the point! This report was done because our country was attacked by a foreign power, and if you take the time to learn the facts, it might prevent you from falling victim to ongoing infiltration and attack.
Arguably, America’s most potent export is our culture—via our movies, music, and television. It has made the USA a place that people want to visit or live. It gives hope to people whose freedoms are crushed, and hope used to give the USA a certain standing in the world, no matter our considerable arrogance and flaws. So it doesn’t take brilliance for an adversary to take advantage of our arrogance by supplying zero-sum issues for us to be certain we’re right about and erupt in battle over. Marketing companies are filled with psychology experts who target us with similar tactics to sell product. This is not genius; it is simple psychology and marketing being used, after deep research into the mechanics of our system, to disrupt and destroy our culture, dividing people to conquer them. Thus far, Putin has probably been victorious beyond his wildest dreams. (In one of the most intriguing largely redacted exchanges on page 149, an unnamed probably Russian person emails a Russian oligarch just after Trump has won the election: “Putin has won.”) And it will get worse for us if we don’t understand what’s going on. Mueller spells it out. I hope more people will read this report.
June 28, 2019
Too many tired tropes. The characters...ugh. They were so 2 dimensional. And the lead protagonist? No one could be THAT stupid.
April 19, 2019
Everyone should read this before taking anyone's word for what it says.
April 19, 2019
Terrible crime novel. Put down after 400 pages. It appears Mueller has never written a book before.
Characters in said story appear too stupid to resemble real-life people, let alone the high IQ President. It is simply not possible for people to be this moronic.
4 page book synopsis released does not resemble the actual plot at all. Pre-release marketing promo by a visibly corrupted Kermit, again, did not do service to the book. False marketing all along.
Main character continues to tweet alternate storylines after release, further confusing readers. Main character appears to be deranged, further shrinks the reading market.
Author claims all this to be fact. But it could only be fiction if such a sham is allowed to happen, and McConnell turns the other way. It’s impossible for the greatest country in the world to be a banana republic, right?
Terrible debut novel by otherwise earnest author, and corrupt co-editor. One star.
Characters in said story appear too stupid to resemble real-life people, let alone the high IQ President. It is simply not possible for people to be this moronic.
4 page book synopsis released does not resemble the actual plot at all. Pre-release marketing promo by a visibly corrupted Kermit, again, did not do service to the book. False marketing all along.
Main character continues to tweet alternate storylines after release, further confusing readers. Main character appears to be deranged, further shrinks the reading market.
Author claims all this to be fact. But it could only be fiction if such a sham is allowed to happen, and McConnell turns the other way. It’s impossible for the greatest country in the world to be a banana republic, right?
Terrible debut novel by otherwise earnest author, and corrupt co-editor. One star.
April 19, 2019
TRUMP IS A CUNT:
!!!
!!!
May 3, 2019
5 stars is somewhat misleading. I mean, it's a government report. It isn't riveting. But you should read it.
You realize:
1. Mueller is fair.
2. You find out it wasn't collusion that they were looking for.
3. Perhaps there wasn't coordination but the campaign was really chummy with the Russians.
4. How the Russians and WikiLeaks manipulated the election.
5. While there are quite a few redactions, it is very interesting where they occur and what isn't said.
6. Barr is a liar.
7. Kushner and Trump lied more than we knew
Look, read it.
You realize:
1. Mueller is fair.
2. You find out it wasn't collusion that they were looking for.
3. Perhaps there wasn't coordination but the campaign was really chummy with the Russians.
4. How the Russians and WikiLeaks manipulated the election.
5. While there are quite a few redactions, it is very interesting where they occur and what isn't said.
6. Barr is a liar.
7. Kushner and Trump lied more than we knew
Look, read it.
April 18, 2019
Trump is guilty of Obstruction of Justice. Every Republicans should be voted out in 2020. Remember that worst scandals in Obama times were things like “Wearing Bike Helmet while riding a bike”. Democrats need to harden up and stop being too soft. Make the Green New Deal the law, get proper health care and tax the rich appropriately.
May 22, 2019
Excellent fact checking. So sorry the ending was disappointing. The Fake President is being held to a lesser standard of behavior than a toddler in a busy IHOP. I really disliked the main character and superb writing and research proves him such a treasonous asshole. I’ll read his next book, The Indictment of January 2021.
April 18, 2019
It’s compelling but the main character is so hard to relate to. World-building’s a little shaky, barely passes the bechdel test. I’d check out his next book though.
June 24, 2019
With all the talk of the Mueller Report, and its ongoing relevance in the coming years, it is important for everyone to know its contents. The William Barr summary (and Trump himself) has done much to misinform the public about the findings of the nearly two-year investigation. Thankfully, the official summaries are quick to digest, and Audible has provided a great public service by making an audio version freely available. It's 19 hours long (might want to set Audible for 1.25x reading speed to shave off a few hours), full of legal jargon (now I get references to "supra" and "nexus"), and riddled with redactions, yet manages to remain engaging and well-read.
The report's 440+ pages of material is divided into two volumes: the first looking at Russian interference in the US election and the Trump campaign's relationship to Russian sources, and the second looking at the efforts of Trump's administration to obstruct justice. In the first volume, Mueller makes it clear from the beginning that "collusion" has been used incorrectly by the media (and endlessly by Trump), when the correct area of law is "conspiracy". He is able to determine that Trump did not knowingly conspire with the Russians in order to win the election, but the Russians absolutely did interfere with our election and substantially influenced the process and national discussion. They did so with a desire to see Trump elected, and they waged massive campaigns on social media with hundreds of thousands of posts that were shared millions of times, incited actual protests and meetups, and hacked and leaked private information from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. While Trump did not knowingly conspire with the Russians, he often encouraged their actions, and they were able to take advantage of his poorly organized and poorly informed campaign. There were many connections between the Trump campaign/transition team and the Russians, which have resulted in a number of arrests and convictions. Trump is thrilled that the report found "no collusion", but at best the first volume shows that he and his closest associates are utterly incompetent.
The second volume lays out Trump's obstruction of justice, which is where the case for impeachment really lies. Mueller scrupulously outlines why he legally can't convict a sitting president, but does not absolve the president of wrongdoing. I wish he could have stated it more clearly, but this sentence is still pretty powerful: "...if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so." I wish it wasn't cloaked in a conditional statement and double-negative, but those paying attention know there's meat here. In particular, Trump's firing of Comey, his anger at Jeff Sessions' recusal and subsequent attempt to remove the Attorney General, his stated desire to remove Mueller, resistance to testimony, and numerous false statements in the media, all point to Trump's actions to influence, obstruct, and impede the due administration of justice. Which is illegal, and obvious to any objective observer. And yet, Mueller goes to great lengths to give Trump and his administration every benefit of the doubt. Even when Trump is clearly lying and flouting the law, Mueller considers that many of those actions may have had other motivations, and he cannot prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trump intended to break the law. Instead, he might have been pandering the media or servicing his own ego. It is frustrating to read these exculpatory explanations (knowing Trump would gladly lie and take advantage of them), and yet it makes the remaining, irrefutable examples of obstruction all the stronger.
There's so much here, but those are the broad strokes. Much is redacted, and often frustratingly so... some of it is obviously juicy material. Some content is redacted because it would expose investigatory techniques, other passages because they are part of an ongoing investigation, still others because they came from a grand jury, and some material contains personal information. Here's hoping a less-redacted version is forthcoming.
Trump's legal counsel did not permit him to answer questions in person, but instead submitted written answers. Mueller would have fought for an in-person interview, but finally decided that he had enough material from other sources and that the inevitable fight wasn't worth extending an already long-running investigation. Trump's written responses are laughable. First of all, because there's zero percent chance he wrote them himself. Trump does not have the capability to compose the cogent sentences found in the appended answers, and they are carefully designed to provide no new information. Instead, they repeatedly claim the inability to remember anything of substance. More grist for the obstruction mill, as far as I'm concerned. Here's hoping that, if congress can't get impeachment proceedings going now, that Trump's re-election defeat is followed with a lengthy prison sentence.
The report's 440+ pages of material is divided into two volumes: the first looking at Russian interference in the US election and the Trump campaign's relationship to Russian sources, and the second looking at the efforts of Trump's administration to obstruct justice. In the first volume, Mueller makes it clear from the beginning that "collusion" has been used incorrectly by the media (and endlessly by Trump), when the correct area of law is "conspiracy". He is able to determine that Trump did not knowingly conspire with the Russians in order to win the election, but the Russians absolutely did interfere with our election and substantially influenced the process and national discussion. They did so with a desire to see Trump elected, and they waged massive campaigns on social media with hundreds of thousands of posts that were shared millions of times, incited actual protests and meetups, and hacked and leaked private information from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. While Trump did not knowingly conspire with the Russians, he often encouraged their actions, and they were able to take advantage of his poorly organized and poorly informed campaign. There were many connections between the Trump campaign/transition team and the Russians, which have resulted in a number of arrests and convictions. Trump is thrilled that the report found "no collusion", but at best the first volume shows that he and his closest associates are utterly incompetent.
The second volume lays out Trump's obstruction of justice, which is where the case for impeachment really lies. Mueller scrupulously outlines why he legally can't convict a sitting president, but does not absolve the president of wrongdoing. I wish he could have stated it more clearly, but this sentence is still pretty powerful: "...if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so." I wish it wasn't cloaked in a conditional statement and double-negative, but those paying attention know there's meat here. In particular, Trump's firing of Comey, his anger at Jeff Sessions' recusal and subsequent attempt to remove the Attorney General, his stated desire to remove Mueller, resistance to testimony, and numerous false statements in the media, all point to Trump's actions to influence, obstruct, and impede the due administration of justice. Which is illegal, and obvious to any objective observer. And yet, Mueller goes to great lengths to give Trump and his administration every benefit of the doubt. Even when Trump is clearly lying and flouting the law, Mueller considers that many of those actions may have had other motivations, and he cannot prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trump intended to break the law. Instead, he might have been pandering the media or servicing his own ego. It is frustrating to read these exculpatory explanations (knowing Trump would gladly lie and take advantage of them), and yet it makes the remaining, irrefutable examples of obstruction all the stronger.
There's so much here, but those are the broad strokes. Much is redacted, and often frustratingly so... some of it is obviously juicy material. Some content is redacted because it would expose investigatory techniques, other passages because they are part of an ongoing investigation, still others because they came from a grand jury, and some material contains personal information. Here's hoping a less-redacted version is forthcoming.
Trump's legal counsel did not permit him to answer questions in person, but instead submitted written answers. Mueller would have fought for an in-person interview, but finally decided that he had enough material from other sources and that the inevitable fight wasn't worth extending an already long-running investigation. Trump's written responses are laughable. First of all, because there's zero percent chance he wrote them himself. Trump does not have the capability to compose the cogent sentences found in the appended answers, and they are carefully designed to provide no new information. Instead, they repeatedly claim the inability to remember anything of substance. More grist for the obstruction mill, as far as I'm concerned. Here's hoping that, if congress can't get impeachment proceedings going now, that Trump's re-election defeat is followed with a lengthy prison sentence.
May 23, 2019
A must read for all Americans and voters alike. Make up your own mind. Although redacted, the information provided is profound. This is a definite roadmap for Congress.
March 22, 2020
Update: check out this review of “Eyes Only”, which is something of a sequel.Robert Mueller has been recognized as the preëminent comic genius of the end of the epoch dominated by the United States. In his sole work that has survived, the contrast between the dry, legalistic tone and the portrayal of the grotesque buffoon at the heart of the tale astonished and delighted readers when it was published in the first quarter of the twenty-first century.
The film adaptation, The Adults in the Room, a mock “documentary” which came a year later, was considered even more hilarious, with the almost monkish character of the author maintaining his calm as he examines and documents the absurd antics of the “president” and his bewildered and bungling “staff”.
It isn’t clear why the “president” in that film was given orange-tinted skin, since there’s no evidence in the original text for that detail, but most scholars agree it was chosen to accentuate his clownish appearance, juxtaposed against his alarming deceitfulness, barbarism, and licentiousness.
The success of the film appears to have been one of the triggers for the collapse of civil order in the country, since the then-actual president apparently used it, along with other less-well documented events, as the pretext for a declaration of martial law. This took place on the eve of an important national election, although reports describing this are controversial, since they may conflate the actual president with the better-known fictional portrayal. Nevertheless, it is well-documented that several of the actors from the film, as well as its director, disappeared during the civil unrest under mysterious circumstances, although Mueller himself was said to have been warned beforehand and thus escaped.
Ironically, very little is known of the historic presidency of that period due to the overwhelming influence of Mueller’s opus. It is highly unlikely that the president the United States elected could have been anything as extreme as the incompetent monster portrayed in the “report”, but even today, centuries later, his name is commonly used to insult enemies and frighten children.
June 3, 2019
The Mueller Report by Robert S. Mueller, a somewhat different kind of book review.
Well, I made it. I slugged through the entire report. It’s all free online, and I didn't even have to steal it.
As eBooks go, this is not the most entertaining “page-turner.” There are a lot of footnotes, for example, which tend to interrupt the flow.
Moreover, as a narrative this is one of the all-time most anticlimactic tomes out there.
As a book on its own merits, it's really more about the news cycle context than anything else.
All this makes it rather difficult to judge.
But let us try. Firstly, there is Volume I. This section heavily details Russian interference in that infamous 2016 election via social media spamming as well the DNC hack. Is this still a controversial fact in some circles? If you are interested in learning about the IRA—the Internet Research Agency—this report is as good a source as any. If you dismiss it as a left-wing conspiracy theory or something, then nothing will really convince especially some legalistic government report.
The schizophrenia of the U.S. government at this time is quite fascinating, how the highest level of the executive branch can have such a different spin than the entire intelligence apparatus (although recent tweets may have finally admitted that he had help, if we are going to get into tweets).
Which perhaps is the whole point. In these post-truth times, can anyone be convinced of anything anymore?
Then we have endless detail on collusion. Yes, outright collusion. There’s a colorful cast of characters, such as foreign policy “expert” George Papadopoulos and the ever-present diplomat Sergey Kislyak. There’s Richard Gates, Roger Stone, and of course Don Jr. and the big tower meeting. What a stream of reports and reports and reports about how much they welcomed Russian help and even tried and failed to collude but couldn't get as far as they liked due to incompetence.
It does not make for a very satisfying read. To learn all this, and then find out that the legal term for conspiracy is so narrow that they ultimately find it inconclusive and then don’t charge the big guy. Cue the right-wing exoneration talking points.
One particularly close example of what may be illegal, as far as specifically trading campaign work for favors, is the question of the Republican party changing their stance on the Russian invasion of the Ukraine at the RNC convention. This highlights the entire problem with the report right there: we have a question that is unanswered. Did or didn’t officials in the campaign trade influence? It’s even part of the written answers with the president, which were dismissed and not followed up on. More on that failure of a Q & A below.
These near-misses continue, again and again it’s a running theme. Was it illegal for Don Jr. to have a meeting with Russians, whether or not it was really about adoptions? The answer is yes, due to campaign finance law. But then it is written that let’s go ahead and not charge him because he probably didn’t know it was illegal and it would be hard to prove intent in court and whatever in this case ignorance of the law is apparently a valid excuse.
So much painstaking research, and so much giving up. These impossible standards keep making it frustrating for the reader.
Not that there aren’t plenty of convictions and crimes uncovered. Paul Manafort was a pretty large get, let’s acknowledge that. But when it comes to the most powerful of the powerful, there is a sense of exasperation. That in the end, America is about protecting those who are too big to lose and the system will always find a way to make sure those on top will never face the consequences they deserve.
And now we have gotten to Volume II: Obstruction. Here is where it may or may not get good. There are the ten examples of the president unambiguously obstructing justice to the best of his ability. Public witness-tampering, changing the story on firing Comey, live on TV no less, demands of loyalty, the whole thing. There’s quite a lot.
[And please don’t give me that line about how there can’t be obstruction if there’s no underlying crime. 1: That’s not true, period. If it was true, wouldn’t it be an incentive to obstruct because if it works criminals would get away with the crime? 2: More importantly, there were so many crimes! The president’s personal lawyer Cohen lied about the Moscow tower, is in jail now, and let’s not even get into the campaign finance violation with the porn star affair hush money. If nothing else simply firing Comey in order to protect his friend Michael Flynn, a criminal, then that is clearly obstructing justice. It’s not only about evidence of collusion/conspiracy at the top. It’s still plenty about obstructing investigations to protect his dirty circle. If that’s not corrupt, what is?]
So, then it all ends in a pathetically lame copout in which DOJ guidelines say they can’t indict so they don’t bother indicting. Yes, Mueller went on television trying to explain his logic puzzle of how you can’t charge a crime with someone who isn’t on trial, even though at the same time it's not an exoneration, punting to Congress as he hints that only they can hold the office to account. Yeah, like that’s going to go well.
This is the core frustration of this document, and this entire era we live in. It is postmodern enough that everybody gets their own talking point. You get to interpret the whole investigation however you want, witch hunt or call to impeachment; pick and chose your own interpretation. Attorney General Barr certainly wants you to interpret it in a political way that benefits his side, based on his initial coverup-y behavior. Mueller simply wants you to be smart enough to read 400 pages and decide for yourself (one of the most naïve positions possible in this age).
In the end, everybody is unsatisfied and the waters couldn’t be muddier. So if you want a sense of closure after reading this, you will still have a long while to wait as we see how history unfolds. So far, to put it lightly, I’m not sensing anything close to a national consensus in the near future.
Isn’t it amazing? This was supposed to be it, and the polls still show that right-wingers believe what they believe, they even have a few quotes to highlight to defend their position. While the rest of the country vaguely listen to mainstream news summations and have ever so slightly leaned towards kinda’ maybe let's-investigate-more-and-maybe-impeach-even-though-it’s-for-naught-cause-of-the-Senate.
Sadly, it seems that perhaps obstruction totally works and the people will never know. The appendix in which the president submits his written answers are certainly more of the same. Mueller even says more or less outright that the questionnaire isn’t enough but he must give up because a subpoena would take too long and he wants to get this damn thing over with. Over thirty answers of “I don’t remember” with no chance to follow up. Once again, the system let’s the powerful get away with anything.
Hell, perhaps all the good stuff is redacted. There are a lot of redactions. So if this is a coverup, then one can only conclude that coverups work.
The story is still continuing. The television drama won’t be over any time soon. In the meantime, the vast majority of Americans will not read this free report. They won’t even read the summaries.
I suppose all that’s left is to depend on the Democrats, and that is a sad notion indeed.
The country is in trouble.
For these reasons above, for this humble reader at this particular time in history, one can only judge this report however full of facts to be a disappointment. Three stars at most.
Well, I made it. I slugged through the entire report. It’s all free online, and I didn't even have to steal it.
As eBooks go, this is not the most entertaining “page-turner.” There are a lot of footnotes, for example, which tend to interrupt the flow.
Moreover, as a narrative this is one of the all-time most anticlimactic tomes out there.
As a book on its own merits, it's really more about the news cycle context than anything else.
All this makes it rather difficult to judge.
But let us try. Firstly, there is Volume I. This section heavily details Russian interference in that infamous 2016 election via social media spamming as well the DNC hack. Is this still a controversial fact in some circles? If you are interested in learning about the IRA—the Internet Research Agency—this report is as good a source as any. If you dismiss it as a left-wing conspiracy theory or something, then nothing will really convince especially some legalistic government report.
The schizophrenia of the U.S. government at this time is quite fascinating, how the highest level of the executive branch can have such a different spin than the entire intelligence apparatus (although recent tweets may have finally admitted that he had help, if we are going to get into tweets).
Which perhaps is the whole point. In these post-truth times, can anyone be convinced of anything anymore?
Then we have endless detail on collusion. Yes, outright collusion. There’s a colorful cast of characters, such as foreign policy “expert” George Papadopoulos and the ever-present diplomat Sergey Kislyak. There’s Richard Gates, Roger Stone, and of course Don Jr. and the big tower meeting. What a stream of reports and reports and reports about how much they welcomed Russian help and even tried and failed to collude but couldn't get as far as they liked due to incompetence.
It does not make for a very satisfying read. To learn all this, and then find out that the legal term for conspiracy is so narrow that they ultimately find it inconclusive and then don’t charge the big guy. Cue the right-wing exoneration talking points.
One particularly close example of what may be illegal, as far as specifically trading campaign work for favors, is the question of the Republican party changing their stance on the Russian invasion of the Ukraine at the RNC convention. This highlights the entire problem with the report right there: we have a question that is unanswered. Did or didn’t officials in the campaign trade influence? It’s even part of the written answers with the president, which were dismissed and not followed up on. More on that failure of a Q & A below.
These near-misses continue, again and again it’s a running theme. Was it illegal for Don Jr. to have a meeting with Russians, whether or not it was really about adoptions? The answer is yes, due to campaign finance law. But then it is written that let’s go ahead and not charge him because he probably didn’t know it was illegal and it would be hard to prove intent in court and whatever in this case ignorance of the law is apparently a valid excuse.
So much painstaking research, and so much giving up. These impossible standards keep making it frustrating for the reader.
Not that there aren’t plenty of convictions and crimes uncovered. Paul Manafort was a pretty large get, let’s acknowledge that. But when it comes to the most powerful of the powerful, there is a sense of exasperation. That in the end, America is about protecting those who are too big to lose and the system will always find a way to make sure those on top will never face the consequences they deserve.
And now we have gotten to Volume II: Obstruction. Here is where it may or may not get good. There are the ten examples of the president unambiguously obstructing justice to the best of his ability. Public witness-tampering, changing the story on firing Comey, live on TV no less, demands of loyalty, the whole thing. There’s quite a lot.
[And please don’t give me that line about how there can’t be obstruction if there’s no underlying crime. 1: That’s not true, period. If it was true, wouldn’t it be an incentive to obstruct because if it works criminals would get away with the crime? 2: More importantly, there were so many crimes! The president’s personal lawyer Cohen lied about the Moscow tower, is in jail now, and let’s not even get into the campaign finance violation with the porn star affair hush money. If nothing else simply firing Comey in order to protect his friend Michael Flynn, a criminal, then that is clearly obstructing justice. It’s not only about evidence of collusion/conspiracy at the top. It’s still plenty about obstructing investigations to protect his dirty circle. If that’s not corrupt, what is?]
So, then it all ends in a pathetically lame copout in which DOJ guidelines say they can’t indict so they don’t bother indicting. Yes, Mueller went on television trying to explain his logic puzzle of how you can’t charge a crime with someone who isn’t on trial, even though at the same time it's not an exoneration, punting to Congress as he hints that only they can hold the office to account. Yeah, like that’s going to go well.
This is the core frustration of this document, and this entire era we live in. It is postmodern enough that everybody gets their own talking point. You get to interpret the whole investigation however you want, witch hunt or call to impeachment; pick and chose your own interpretation. Attorney General Barr certainly wants you to interpret it in a political way that benefits his side, based on his initial coverup-y behavior. Mueller simply wants you to be smart enough to read 400 pages and decide for yourself (one of the most naïve positions possible in this age).
In the end, everybody is unsatisfied and the waters couldn’t be muddier. So if you want a sense of closure after reading this, you will still have a long while to wait as we see how history unfolds. So far, to put it lightly, I’m not sensing anything close to a national consensus in the near future.
Isn’t it amazing? This was supposed to be it, and the polls still show that right-wingers believe what they believe, they even have a few quotes to highlight to defend their position. While the rest of the country vaguely listen to mainstream news summations and have ever so slightly leaned towards kinda’ maybe let's-investigate-more-and-maybe-impeach-even-though-it’s-for-naught-cause-of-the-Senate.
Sadly, it seems that perhaps obstruction totally works and the people will never know. The appendix in which the president submits his written answers are certainly more of the same. Mueller even says more or less outright that the questionnaire isn’t enough but he must give up because a subpoena would take too long and he wants to get this damn thing over with. Over thirty answers of “I don’t remember” with no chance to follow up. Once again, the system let’s the powerful get away with anything.
Hell, perhaps all the good stuff is redacted. There are a lot of redactions. So if this is a coverup, then one can only conclude that coverups work.
The story is still continuing. The television drama won’t be over any time soon. In the meantime, the vast majority of Americans will not read this free report. They won’t even read the summaries.
I suppose all that’s left is to depend on the Democrats, and that is a sad notion indeed.
The country is in trouble.
For these reasons above, for this humble reader at this particular time in history, one can only judge this report however full of facts to be a disappointment. Three stars at most.
July 6, 2019
Ok hear me out--this is long and you already know how it ends, but it's a must-read. Not because you have to know the details (nothing was all that new), but mostly because it's riveting and also such a great legal treatise. It was fun to read the legal codes related to each charge and see how Mueller's team interpreted cases to set a standard and then put Trump's behavior against those standards. Super dry and legal, but also really fascinating. I hope my fellow law professors are planning to teach courses just on this report.
As for our president, I don't think he colluded with Russia. I do think he obstructed justice. both because he's a complete idiot and he thinks he's a mob don as opposed to the executor of the nation's laws and constitution. When will this all be over?
As for our president, I don't think he colluded with Russia. I do think he obstructed justice. both because he's a complete idiot and he thinks he's a mob don as opposed to the executor of the nation's laws and constitution. When will this all be over?
April 19, 2019
I was a little reluctant to buy this book after hearing a boring synopsis by the Attorney General. But it was kept me really interested all the way through. Had many of the elements of a good crime story, but then somehow the half-witted protagonist escapes prosecution when he becomes President.
April 20, 2019
US GOVERNMENT has clearly read Nabokov, but being able to appreciate smart satire and being able to execute it are two very different disciplines. All the trademarks are here: a protagonist whose incompetence and lack of self awareness beggars belief but whose inherently unreliable narration lends the author cover from moral consideration. Taking a page from Pale Fire, The Mueller Report tells its story not through direct narration but instead through a metafictional context. But whereas Pale Fire's text is concealed within the ostensible narrator's commentary, The Mueller Report instead channels the story through the eyes of secondary witnesses. It's a compelling approach but one that doesn't quite work. These secondary actors lack depth, and their regular leaps of logic and ethical boundaries stretch suspension of disbelief even by the standards of gross satire. And while characters like Charles Kinbote and Humbert Humbert are vile and obscene in their characterization, there's a charm to their delusion that defies, without excusing, their actions.
What little sympathy readers might be able to squeeze from Nabokov's gross caricatures are missing from Trump, leaving a character who is little more than a raw and pitiful collection of grotesqueries. That one could find a pedophile like Humbert modestly, if circumstantially, endearing but find no such affection for Donald J. Trump is telling, and it's hard to tell if this is intended or if it's a failure on the part of the author. No such character could reasonably exist in the real world, and yet, one wonders if US GOVERNMENT might be speaking less to the nature of his character and more to what was once deemed "the banality of evil". This Trump sometimes seems less a character and more a force of nature, a figure of parable, a toddler that has soiled its pants and yet refuses to let them be changed as he cries for a second scoop of ice cream.
Some might argue that the true protagonist here is not Trump himself but the shadowy Mueller, and there the Kinbote parallels are at their most relevant. It's a subtler approach to Nabokov's notion of the unseen yet omnipresent narrator. Mueller's unwavering approach to some conceptual standard of "impartiality" reveals the inherent flaw in such notions. As clear and present evidence of crime stacks again and again upon itself, Mueller demures, noting that none of the evidence sustains the standards of prosecution.
What we're left with is a story of accountability, in which all the actors, big and small, are complicit in the actions of a man who is little more than a child (or else a man who pretends to be as such). Each new witness in the endless parade of interviews is as complicit as Trump, and Mueller, by virtue of his proclaimed mission, is as culpable as anyone. And as with all the players in this sordid story, he passes that culpability to the next in line, until the only character left accountable for the crimes is the reader themselves. It's a daring and clever decision on the part of US GOVERNMENT and one that wavers between deftness and on the nose clumsiness.
But cleverness alone is not enough to transform a good story into a great one, and this is a text that strains beneath the weight of its own ambition. It plays coy but not coy enough. The facade that there is intended to be some level of ambiguity in the circumstances that play out are quickly dispersed. The guilt of Trump is hard to question. The only question that's left is how much one must strain their conscience to act as if shades of gray remain. There's value in the message being relayed here, but at well over 400 pages, it could use the strong hand of an editor. It's hard to read the Mueller Report without feeling a tangible sense of sickness and personal guilt, and for that, US GOVERNMENT should be commended. Few books manage to make the reader an actionable character in their story. Fewer still manage to elicit such a challenging sense of our own ethics.
It's easy for us to say that, were the character of Trump real, we would put him to trial for his crimes. It seems the only actionable course. But it's a notion that US GOVERNMENT deftly and nihilistically argues against.
I worry their conclusion is correct.
What little sympathy readers might be able to squeeze from Nabokov's gross caricatures are missing from Trump, leaving a character who is little more than a raw and pitiful collection of grotesqueries. That one could find a pedophile like Humbert modestly, if circumstantially, endearing but find no such affection for Donald J. Trump is telling, and it's hard to tell if this is intended or if it's a failure on the part of the author. No such character could reasonably exist in the real world, and yet, one wonders if US GOVERNMENT might be speaking less to the nature of his character and more to what was once deemed "the banality of evil". This Trump sometimes seems less a character and more a force of nature, a figure of parable, a toddler that has soiled its pants and yet refuses to let them be changed as he cries for a second scoop of ice cream.
Some might argue that the true protagonist here is not Trump himself but the shadowy Mueller, and there the Kinbote parallels are at their most relevant. It's a subtler approach to Nabokov's notion of the unseen yet omnipresent narrator. Mueller's unwavering approach to some conceptual standard of "impartiality" reveals the inherent flaw in such notions. As clear and present evidence of crime stacks again and again upon itself, Mueller demures, noting that none of the evidence sustains the standards of prosecution.
What we're left with is a story of accountability, in which all the actors, big and small, are complicit in the actions of a man who is little more than a child (or else a man who pretends to be as such). Each new witness in the endless parade of interviews is as complicit as Trump, and Mueller, by virtue of his proclaimed mission, is as culpable as anyone. And as with all the players in this sordid story, he passes that culpability to the next in line, until the only character left accountable for the crimes is the reader themselves. It's a daring and clever decision on the part of US GOVERNMENT and one that wavers between deftness and on the nose clumsiness.
But cleverness alone is not enough to transform a good story into a great one, and this is a text that strains beneath the weight of its own ambition. It plays coy but not coy enough. The facade that there is intended to be some level of ambiguity in the circumstances that play out are quickly dispersed. The guilt of Trump is hard to question. The only question that's left is how much one must strain their conscience to act as if shades of gray remain. There's value in the message being relayed here, but at well over 400 pages, it could use the strong hand of an editor. It's hard to read the Mueller Report without feeling a tangible sense of sickness and personal guilt, and for that, US GOVERNMENT should be commended. Few books manage to make the reader an actionable character in their story. Fewer still manage to elicit such a challenging sense of our own ethics.
It's easy for us to say that, were the character of Trump real, we would put him to trial for his crimes. It seems the only actionable course. But it's a notion that US GOVERNMENT deftly and nihilistically argues against.
I worry their conclusion is correct.
April 19, 2019
The President of the United States of America is the worst kind of Muggle imaginable.
April 19, 2019
The report is split into "the Russia stuff" and "the obstruction of justice stuff", a.k.a., the crime & the cover-up. As is foretold in the legends of our ancestors, the cover-up is juicier and more substantial. Also, it's all about the Donald. The Russia stuff, not so much.
The Russia stuff turns out to be kind of a nothingburger after all. Don't get me wrong: if I were Putin I'd have the report translated into Russian, bound in gilt leather, and distributed as gifts to everyone at the KGB or whatever he's calling it these days with their holiday bonuses. Well done, guys. You cooked it. It just doesn't look like they needed any help from Team Trump to do it.
The investigators didn't get a lot of cooperation from some key people, and lots of documents conveniently went missing, so there may be more to it than this. But judging how much else leaked out from this not-particularly-careful group of nitwits... I wouldn't be surprised if we're getting most of the story here. And it's pretty much what we already know, minus the breathless insinuations of the Rachel Maddow crowd.
Everybody at Team Trump lied about it anyway because that's how they roll. And because Trump told them to because His Ego. He hated the thought of people saying he didn't win because of his own strategic brilliance. Plus, nobody seemed to have a really good grasp of what was legal and what wasn't (who does?) so they figured lying to federal investigators was probably the wisest course of action (it wasn't).
So on to the cover-up. It's just page after page of Trump obstructing justice: lying, telling other people to lie, calling people into his office to tell them to tell other people to lie, threatening the people investigating him, dangling pardons, threatening the people testifying against him, trying to get various people at Justice fired for not stopping their investigation, and so forth.
There's this one part where, out of a clear blue sky, Chris Christie [!] parachutes in from out of nowhere. Christie, despite his best efforts, has thus far been mostly untainted by the Trump administration's activities. He pulls up next to Trump on his dream-mobile and says "hey, cowboy, yeah, those special prosecutors are the suck, but, you know, they only get worse if you pick at them. Just ignore them as much as you can, and govern as badly as you can, for as long as you can, is my advice to you, cupcake. Chances are it'll all blow over."
And you're reading the report and you think to yourself: "Finally! A voice of sanity!" But Trump doesn't even pause to catch his breath. He's like "F% that guy! MOAR LIES! BIGGER OBSTRUCTIONS!"
It's relentless. And crazy. His own team in the White House doesn't know what to do with him. Everybody's like "tell him to stop obstructing teh justice!" And they're like "I did, but he did it anyway as soon as I left his office!" The political people are trying to put the brakes on him, while the career people are trying to cover their asses and figure out how long they can pretend they didn't hear that latest illegal thing he ordered them to do.
And it all started because he was frustrated that his people weren't making it perfectly clear to the media that he was NOT being investigated for any of that Russia stuff. So he fired Comey. Which launched the obstruction-of-justice investigation. Which made it all about him. I can't tell if this was monumentally stupid, or insanely clever in the bizarro world of Trump's psychological motivators.
Meanwhile the White House is leaking like a thundercloud on a rainy day as everyone is trying to get their stories straight, Trump is going outside the White House entirely to try to find messengers who are willing to convey his commands of unethical behavior through back-channels, and aghast people at all levels are trying to make sure they're not the ones who are gonna take the fall.
The upshot of this is that we've heard most of this stuff before if we've been reading the papers. That and the fact that half of his witness-tampering was done via public tweets. There is something jaw-dropping about seeing it all collected together in one place, though.
But then the big cop out arrives. Mueller & co. basically say "However, he is The President, and so it would be very strange for his own justice department to try to hold him to account for this. That's what impeachment is for. So we're not going to give our opinions as to whether The President is guilty of obstruction of justice. But he's definitely not not guilty, if you know what we mean." Punt! Take it away, Congress (fat chance).
The Russia stuff turns out to be kind of a nothingburger after all. Don't get me wrong: if I were Putin I'd have the report translated into Russian, bound in gilt leather, and distributed as gifts to everyone at the KGB or whatever he's calling it these days with their holiday bonuses. Well done, guys. You cooked it. It just doesn't look like they needed any help from Team Trump to do it.
The investigators didn't get a lot of cooperation from some key people, and lots of documents conveniently went missing, so there may be more to it than this. But judging how much else leaked out from this not-particularly-careful group of nitwits... I wouldn't be surprised if we're getting most of the story here. And it's pretty much what we already know, minus the breathless insinuations of the Rachel Maddow crowd.
Everybody at Team Trump lied about it anyway because that's how they roll. And because Trump told them to because His Ego. He hated the thought of people saying he didn't win because of his own strategic brilliance. Plus, nobody seemed to have a really good grasp of what was legal and what wasn't (who does?) so they figured lying to federal investigators was probably the wisest course of action (it wasn't).
So on to the cover-up. It's just page after page of Trump obstructing justice: lying, telling other people to lie, calling people into his office to tell them to tell other people to lie, threatening the people investigating him, dangling pardons, threatening the people testifying against him, trying to get various people at Justice fired for not stopping their investigation, and so forth.
There's this one part where, out of a clear blue sky, Chris Christie [!] parachutes in from out of nowhere. Christie, despite his best efforts, has thus far been mostly untainted by the Trump administration's activities. He pulls up next to Trump on his dream-mobile and says "hey, cowboy, yeah, those special prosecutors are the suck, but, you know, they only get worse if you pick at them. Just ignore them as much as you can, and govern as badly as you can, for as long as you can, is my advice to you, cupcake. Chances are it'll all blow over."
And you're reading the report and you think to yourself: "Finally! A voice of sanity!" But Trump doesn't even pause to catch his breath. He's like "F% that guy! MOAR LIES! BIGGER OBSTRUCTIONS!"
It's relentless. And crazy. His own team in the White House doesn't know what to do with him. Everybody's like "tell him to stop obstructing teh justice!" And they're like "I did, but he did it anyway as soon as I left his office!" The political people are trying to put the brakes on him, while the career people are trying to cover their asses and figure out how long they can pretend they didn't hear that latest illegal thing he ordered them to do.
And it all started because he was frustrated that his people weren't making it perfectly clear to the media that he was NOT being investigated for any of that Russia stuff. So he fired Comey. Which launched the obstruction-of-justice investigation. Which made it all about him. I can't tell if this was monumentally stupid, or insanely clever in the bizarro world of Trump's psychological motivators.
Meanwhile the White House is leaking like a thundercloud on a rainy day as everyone is trying to get their stories straight, Trump is going outside the White House entirely to try to find messengers who are willing to convey his commands of unethical behavior through back-channels, and aghast people at all levels are trying to make sure they're not the ones who are gonna take the fall.
The upshot of this is that we've heard most of this stuff before if we've been reading the papers. That and the fact that half of his witness-tampering was done via public tweets. There is something jaw-dropping about seeing it all collected together in one place, though.
But then the big cop out arrives. Mueller & co. basically say "However, he is The President, and so it would be very strange for his own justice department to try to hold him to account for this. That's what impeachment is for. So we're not going to give our opinions as to whether The President is guilty of obstruction of justice. But he's definitely not not guilty, if you know what we mean." Punt! Take it away, Congress (fat chance).
April 18, 2019
When you're hoping Arya shows up, and instead season 1 Sansa knocks on the door.
Want to read
October 8, 2023
Depending on which side of the aisle you're at, there are different interpretations of the Report, the bad ones and benevolent ones. (You may choose). Like the two next ones.
https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/20...
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019...
IS THE RUSSIAGATE SIMILAR TO WATERGATE? OR "MORE SIGNIFICANT" THAN WATERGATE?
The Report for free:
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-m...
UPDATE
Barr didn't get it right. Mueller didn't like the spin.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ne...
And today, Barr absent at the House Judiciary Hearing [yesterday he'd been there for at least 6 hours].
My guess: ain't over for the Democrats.
More Chapters to come. A LOT MORE.
BOOKS WILL BE WRITTEN ABOUT THIS CASE.
UPDATE
New version of the Report:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/...
UPDATE
This is new. Nune's view, that the Report is a "fraud", somehow cooked up.
https://saraacarter.com/nunes-mueller...
UPDATE
Celebrities in denial, won't let go.
UPDATE
The Mueller Report staged and read out loud, in "The Investigation: A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts". (Someday as film?)
https://variety.com/2019/legit/news/a...
UPDATE
For those who haven't read it, a re-written Report:
https://amp.insider.com/mueller-repor...
UPDATE
Sounds like some don't agree with the title of the book. "It's clear Mueller didn't write this report" says Alan Dershowitz. He suggested the book should be titled as follows "The Staff Report".
UPDATE (27th July 2019)
I agree with most of the comments on the Mueller´s Hearings: "a bust", "a disaster", now democrats have "less than nothing". So much expectation, and fuss, for nothing. The lady in the couch could well be the Democrat Party.
June 17, 2019
The Main Character is completely unbelievable and a one-dimensional villian. Characters are too stupid to be real people. The plot is ridiculous. A horribly written dystopia. And all the good bits have been blacked out!
December 31, 2019
Catch-up Review 3 of 4:
Really short review: Yes, we know. Congress, do your job.
Slightly longer review: I think that this was an expertly laid out report that outlines very specifically what happened, who did it, when, where, and how. Despite all the redactions, it's pretty clear that there was some really underhanded shit going on to make sure that Trump won the presidency.
I will say that the audiobook version of this made getting through it quite a bit easier, because it's VERY dense, and VERY detailed with reference spiderwebs linking everything together. Very thorough, and I thought quite fair. When something wasn't known or couldn't be proved, it was stated as such.
Really short review: Yes, we know. Congress, do your job.
Slightly longer review: I think that this was an expertly laid out report that outlines very specifically what happened, who did it, when, where, and how. Despite all the redactions, it's pretty clear that there was some really underhanded shit going on to make sure that Trump won the presidency.
I will say that the audiobook version of this made getting through it quite a bit easier, because it's VERY dense, and VERY detailed with reference spiderwebs linking everything together. Very thorough, and I thought quite fair. When something wasn't known or couldn't be proved, it was stated as such.
April 19, 2019
Classic comedy. I lol’d at many points while reading. Imagine a vicious and corrupt Michael Scott from the Office combined with Joffrey Baratheon from Game of Thrones and that gives you a hint of the main character, “President Trump.”
The point of view is 3rd person, and very objective in tone. The formality gives the comedy more of a bite bc it comes across rather dry.
It’s very readable for a report like this. It’s truly remarkable a real human being can be this insanely stupid and corrupt.
The point of view is 3rd person, and very objective in tone. The formality gives the comedy more of a bite bc it comes across rather dry.
It’s very readable for a report like this. It’s truly remarkable a real human being can be this insanely stupid and corrupt.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 624 reviews