First published 2019
The FBI finds itself caught between two presidential campaigns in 2016, investigating both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump simultaneously. When Trump fires FBI Director James Comey, he triggers the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel and forces the Bureau to open a formal investigation into the president himself. Trump believes a conspiracy of career bureaucrats including Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, and Peter Strzok works to undermine him. Comey defends his agents as apolitical servants of the law. Stewart examines what really happened inside the FBI during this unprecedented moment. He draws on interviews with officials from the FBI, Department of Justice, and White House, plus transcripts and internal reports. The book reveals how Trump's firing of Comey set two democratic institutions on a collision course. Stewart goes beyond the Mueller report's legal constraints to show how the president's belief in a plot against him continues disrupting lives and shaking both the FBI and Justice Department.
Genres: political-science, politics, non-fiction, 21st-century, current-affairs, american-history
Vibes: suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Period: 2016
384 pages · Hardcover · Penguin Press