Interference The inside story of Trump, Russia, and the Mueller investigation

Aaron Zebley

Book - 2024

"The behind-the-scenes story of the investigation that shook America to its core--the Mueller investigation that presented the evidence of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election--as told by Robert Mueller's closest colleagues, including never-before-revealed details into how the team investigated Putin's campaign to favor candidate Donald Trump and Trump's efforts to interfere in the investigation."

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Subjects
Published
New York : Simon & Schuster 2024.
Language
English
Main Author
Aaron Zebley (author)
Other Authors
James L. Quarles (author), Andrew D. Goldstein (writer of introduction), Robert S. Mueller, 1944-
Item Description
Includes index.
Physical Description
xxii, 259 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9781668063743
  • Glossary
  • Preface
  • Authors' Note
  • 1. Nine Days in May
  • 2. Crossfire Hurricane
  • 3. Early Decisions
  • 4. The Need for Speed
  • 5. Lift the Cloud
  • 6. Congress
  • 7. Russia and Its Government's Support for Mr. Trump
  • 8. Dirt in the Form of Thousands of Emails
  • 9. Paul Manafort, Russian Friends, and Black Caviar
  • 10. Information Warfare
  • 11. The Camp David Interview That Never Happened
  • 12. Americas Mayor
  • 13. The Russian Military Intelligence Operation
  • 14. Subpoena the President?
  • 15. Pardons on the Table
  • 16. Giuliani Returns
  • 17. Writing the Report
  • 18. Our Analysis and Our Words
  • 19. The Barr Report
  • 20. Closing the Office
  • 21. The Rule of Law
  • Acknowledgments
  • Index
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Prosecutors meticulously correct the record on Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The authors, who worked under special counsel Robert S. Mueller III during his high-profile federal investigation, aim to clear up lingering "confusion" about their findings. Recognizing that portions of the 448-page report they completed in March 2019 were "not as clear as we had hoped," they don't equivocate: "It is beyond dispute that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election to support [Donald] Trump," using social media and emails stolen from Democratic Party computers in an effort to boost Trump and villainize his opponent, Hillary Clinton. There's no way to measure "the effect, if any," this had on the result, yet "it is undeniable" that Trump's campaign "organized a press strategy" based on information pilfered and released by Russian military hackers. The authors argue that persistent misinterpretations of their findings stem from statements that William Barr, Trump's attorney general, made after Mueller filed his report. Mueller cited multiple "episodes" in which Trump potentially obstructed justice. But because the Justice Department holds that Congress, not prosecutors, must decide whether to allege wrongdoing on the part of a sitting president, Mueller declined to make a "traditional prosecutorial determination" on charging Trump. Crucially, Mueller's report is neither a criminal indictment of Trump nor an exoneration. Barr, however, declined for weeks to publish "our analysis and our words" on potential obstruction, instead releasing his own "inaccurate and incomplete" summary, which omitted Russia's backing of Trump and wrongly stated that Mueller's report "identifies no actions" by Trump that "constitute obstructive conduct." This "fundamentally undermined" the report's conclusions "and made it more difficult" for citizens to understand what Mueller, in a preface, calls Russia's "multiple, systematic attacks" on democracy. With another election drawing near, "Russia is interfering again," the authors write, declining, alas, to elaborate. An essential account of Russia's ongoing attempts to disrupt American elections. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.