Revenge : how Donald Trump weaponized the US Department of Justice against his critics
When Michael Cohen's secret payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels on behalf of Donald Trump made Cohen look like a liability to the by-then-President of the United States, the end to their decade-long relationship came swiftly--with a knock on the door from the FBI. Soon, Cohen would find himself imprisoned--even though he had plenty of evidence to show he was innocent of most of the charges. Meanwhile, with the release of the Steele Dossier, Cohen also found himself battling endless news reports citing the Dossier's claims that he'd had clandestine dealings with Russia--reports that only mounted despite his exoneration by the Mueller Report. In a story now being echoed in recent breaking news stories about IRS persecution of other Trump foes such as former FBI head James Comey and others, Cohen details--in his inimitable blunt language, with absolutely no holds barred and naming names--his attempt to clear his name and tell the truth about Donald Trump. Chillingly, he also makes clear what happens when you try to speak truth to power, and the power knows no bounds.
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- ISBN: 9781685890544
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Physical Description
print
xix, 297 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm - Publisher [Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 2022.
Content descriptions
Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references. |
Formatted Contents Note: | The bullshit begins -- The "sovereign district" of New York -- To Otisville I go! -- How many accountants does it take to screw in a lightbulb? -- Democracy in peril -- The department of injustice -- Appendix: documents and social media. |
Additional Information
Kirkus Review
Revenge : How Donald Trump Weaponized the US Department of Justice Against His Critics
Kirkus Reviews
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
The former president's former counsel rages against his former boss. "Donald Trump is the mirror into the depth of the soul of government corruption," writes Cohen. "He is the standard bearer for corrupt dictator wannabes. He is the poster boy for fascism." The author was one of countless Trump staffers to be thrown under the bus when legal trouble threatened, in this case because of a payment to Stormy Daniels. Cohen clearly seeks revenge for the time he spent in a country-club federal prison--nicknamed Camp Cupcake--where, "if you wanted to break out, you merely needed to call an Uber." But revenge cuts both ways: Cohen argues that the Justice Department was wholly under the sway of a vengeful Trump and weaponized to punish anyone he targeted. In Cohen's case, punishment came in the form of imprisonment for tax evasion--even though, he insists, it was a "tax omission." The IRS was the weaponized agency, argues the author, that illegally leaked information about him to other agencies, but leading the charge was the FBI, which "was corrupt, vindictive, and intellectually lazy." Moreover, he insists, everyone in the FBI at the time of his trial was "guilty of subverting justice." Given recent, deeper-diving reports on the wholesale compromise of DOJ under the reign of William Barr, Cohen's accusations are often glancing. Still, when he's not spitting bile (of his work for Trump, for example, he writes, "the biggest part of my job was covering for his fat ass"), he hits a few points: It's a fact that when Trump--"an orange-faced piece of shit who ran roughshod over the Constitution"--called for Russia to investigate Hillary Clinton's emails, Russia did so instantly, and it's a fact that the disproportionate sentencing so common in justice circles can be, and is, used as a political weapon. Angry and sometimes scattershot, a footnote to more comprehensive accounts of Trumpian malfeasance. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.