‘The book reveals the president in all his impulsiveness, insecurity and growing disregard for rules and norms; White House aides alternating between deference to the man and defiance of his ‘crazy s—’ requests; and a campaign team too inept to realize, or too reckless to care, when they might have been bending the law.’
Shelf your “Fear,” Bob Woodard. The Mueller report is the best book on the Trump White House so far.
That’s a take from Washington Post book critic Carlos Lozada, who just won a Pulitzer Prize in criticism, in the cover column of the paper’s Sunday Outlook section.
The Mueller report, featuring heavily redacted passages, was released publicly on Thursday after a couple of curtain-raisers by the Trump team and the nation’s top cop, Attorney General William Barr.
Less than 24 hours after the report went online Thursday, paperback versions took the top two spots among Amazon’s AMZN, -0.17% new-release sales.
Don’t miss: Amazon’s audiobook of the Mueller report has an Orwellian price tag of $19.84
“The Mueller report is that rare Washington tell-all that surpasses its pre-publication hype,” Lozada suggests. “Sure, it is a little longer than necessary. Too many footnotes and distracting redactions. The writing is often flat, and the first half of the book drags…”
The first half “cleared” the president and his campaign of collusion with Russia to impede the 2016 election, supporters stress. The second half focuses on obstruction and has, like much of the Trump presidency, split the country yet again.
Read: Fake news? Mueller findings show reporting on Russia had it mostly right
Wall Street Journal: The legal strategy that paid off for the president
“The story shifts abruptly between riveting insider tales and dense legalisms. Its protagonist doesn’t really come alive until halfway through, once Volume I (on Russian interference) gives way to Volume II (on obstruction of justice),” writes Lozada.
Related: Warren becomes first 2020 presidential candidate to call for Trump impeachment
There’s history, too, in “the inevitable Nixonian reference, as when White House counsel Don McGahn refuses the president’s request to instruct the deputy attorney general to dismiss Mueller, because McGahn worried about unleashing a new Saturday Night Massacre,” the reviewer writes.
“No need for a ‘Note on Use of Anonymous Sources’ disclaimer. Mueller doesn’t just have receipts — he seems to know what almost everyone wanted to buy,” said Lozada.
Where the narrative goes from here is now with Congress to decide.
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