Authors at the q a button at the bottom right of the screen. Kent will ask your questions. Before i opportunity it over to kent and jeffrey i want to remind you but a couple of other Virtual Events were involved in alert this week. This wednesday at 8 00 p. M. Our partners the marcus Jewish Community sir . Atlanta are presenting a free event with coverage kevin quan if his latest novel, sex and vanity, and this friday at 7 00 p. M. Is Bell Wilkerson will discuss her latest best seller with jon mecham. Thank you so much for your purchase tonight. Join us for this event and for your continued support during these extraordinary times. Now ill turn i over to Kent Alexander and jeffrey toobin. Thank you. Jeff, this book was fantastic. Im so looking forward to talking with you but it. Innovate going to get into more of an entry duke of you because i think people know you really well, but had you written this book five years ago, i would have said it was a thriller, paymentturner, a pageturner, absolutely riveting fiction with the only caveat that some over the stuff would just strain credulity. Now all of that holds true except it is nonfiction but you have really within a masterpiece that was fun to read and a great piece for history, and i the book is called true crimes and misdemeanors and i thought i would start off and just ask you to give people a sense of the book because just came out, most people havent read it. And also be the significance of the name. Thank you, kent and for this kind words and thank you to a cappella for doing this event. I love book stores. I love independent book stores and youre lucky in atlanta to have one of the best in a cappella and im delighted to be part of this event and anything that can help them sell books, especially my book, but any books at all, thats lets i want to make that clear. Kent, its great to see you. Kent sent me his book about the Richard Jewel case, and i thought, really . What is there to say . And i was just amazed by that book, and how complicated and involved it was, and not in a small way and not a very impressive picture of my current profession, the journalistic profession; to lot of bad journalism about Richard Jewel for which he paid a terrible price. And it was just a fascinating book that just shows, one of the things i have found in my career, ive written becomes but high profile subjects, whether its the bill clinton Monika Lewinski matter or the oj simple con says or the recount in 2000. Those are stories that people often say i think Richard Jewel was another we know that story. We know everything about that story. And the one thing i know for sure is that you dont, as a reader, because i didnt, and im probably im professionally obligated to follow these stories closely. And the just to finally answer your question, what your back. What the book is about and what is with the title, i agreed with my editors at double day id write a book about the Mueller Investigation, almost as soon as it started, which was in may of 2017. It was an unnerving experience because i had no access to the Mueller Office for more than two years because they wouldnt talk to me while i was while they were in business. So i had to trust myself that it would be an inside story to write. Fortunately i dead get access to them somewhat later. But basically the idea behind the become the book was to tell a story to do a narrative. Thats one of the thing is learned from my first editors is that you always want to tell a story, and obviously i think there are quite a few facts in this book that people dont know, but more important than that, is the story, is like what happens when you investigate a president . How does that work in this case . Who were these people . One of the questions i always get as a journalist when i am doing a covering a big story and theres bill clinton or its oj simpson or Robert Mueller, people have the same question. Whats he like . What are these people like . And who are they . Thats the question i really enjoy answering because [loss of audio] so interesting and as for the title, obviously [loss of audio]. In the constitution, and i switched it because not only did my story of course i had no idea this was going to happen evolved from just the mueller story to also an impeachment story, but to make the point that as i elaborate in the text i think President Trump committed actual crimes, true crimes, as well as impeachable offenses, high crimes and misdemeanors and i thought it sounded kind of cool. It does good choice. Really good choice. Speaking of mueller, i think a lot of us have seen the mueller property and bought it and probably like me have on your night stand and made it 37 pages through and just its just very legalistic, and one of the wonderful things but your book, it adds everything you would really want to know as you said, jeff, tell the story. You have incredibly colorful characters and starting with jim comey. Jim comey is the fbi director, and got had some issues with Hillary Clinton emails and all of that and im curious about your take on jim. So, youre very balanced in the by a you portray him and fairly polarizing as a viring guess but beth people have criticisms and you quote somebody as calling the sank moanous, phony, attention junky with a messiah complex and that was a republican. Tell us but comey and then compare him to bob mueller. Well, again, one of things like about doing a book project where you have time and space to write, is you can deal with the subject of complexity; that and its my experience that most people are complicate or complex and they are not all one thing and they are not all good or all bad. And they have virtues and they have flaws. Sometimes theyre actually the same qualities. Virtues turn out to be their qualities and thats certainly applies to comey. He is a unique figure in that its funny, he said polarizing. Im not sure that is the word for someone who is hated equally by the republicans and the democrats. I dont know who is on the other poll somewhere, but i do think that he is a strong, highly intelligent person, who has a very clear sense of legislate rat the thinks the right thing to do and is howl he should be perceived in the public. He is someone who is always been execs question sitly aware of miss public persona and that is not necessary lay bad quality but i think it led him interest errors here. I am not going to rehearse the story of his letter that sabotaged the clinton campaign, i suspect a Learned Group like the ones listening here are familiar with the story. Once trump became president , comey understandably wanted to try to develop a relationship with the president. Never met him before and didnt know him so they started meeting. Its very important for the fbi that the president rely on the fbi, trust the fbi, so comey reached out to him and started having meetings with him even before trump was innew england rate. Comey saw in donald trump saw someone who is was trying to manipulate him entirely for personal gain, but using words and language that were not explicit in his demands, and he said, as others have said, that the language that trump used in those interactions were reminiscent of the times he was prosecuting organized crime in new york. He demand loyalty. He wanted help for his friend, for michael flynn, and comey, who is nothing if not a i mean, theres a lot to criticize jim comby. Heels no criminal and knows the difference between right and wrong and knows when he is being leaned on for so he started taking notes of the conversations and doing almost contemporaneous summaries of trump and sharing itself with a small godmother of people at the buehrle rove but wouldnt give trump the loyalty, the decisions he wanted and us maltly was fired on may 9, 2017, he was fired for the right reasons, not the wrong reasons help was fired right from comeys perspective because he wouldnt bend to trumps political will. Right. And going back to the hillary alert which Everybody Knows about and jim comey having to make a decision about announce organize not announcing if was struck in your book at the start, you have the Mueller Jim Comey and make his decisions, donald trump elected. At the end guess through the impeachment trials and the impeachment and the middle we have mueller, the Mueller Report. So we good from the beginning to the middle and the Mueller Report. How would you compare jim comeys decision on making announcement about Hillary Clinton help he has facts and he thinks things should be shared, and bob muellers decision on what to share with the public on russia and obstruction. Well, i think youre right to point out the contrast between the two men because it really is extraordinary. They are very, very different people. And comey wrote a very successful book, certainly after the left shortly after he was fired as dick director and called its higher loyalty, which i think was a revealing title because comey feels like he owes a higher loyalty to his conception of the truth, what is right and wrong. Robert mueller has very different approach to life and work. Robert mueller is an institutionalist. He is someone who has never particularly cared about how he is portrayed personally. Never written a book. He hasnt given a lot of speeches help is someone who hey devoted his life to institutions whether its the marine corps or the department of justice or the fbi. This is the these are the didding principles of muellers life. And one of the thing that is important to remember about mueller and his investigation is he was a special counsel. He wasnt an independent coup help was in the department of justice am subordinate of the Senior Leadership of the depth of justice. He was not like ken is in starr or Lawrence Walsh who were independent coups counsels and n independent legal basis for their investigations. Mueller was always aware that he was working for rod rossen stereotype, the Deputy Attorney general who appointed him, and particularly at the end of the investigation and heres where the story gets, i think, actually tragic, is that he trusts that william barr, the attorney general, someone mueller has nope for decades and was once a close colleague of, would treat him fairly and treat his investigation honorably and accurately, and barr bow trays mueller, betrays the trust that he puts in him, and issues a completely distorted summary of what trump of what mueller actually concluded, and not only that, doesnt release the report itself for a month, letting barr s summary stand as the Public Perception of what mueller actually found. Mueller never protests because he is a loyal institutionalist in a way that i cant imagine comey would have done the same. Right. One is very out there and one is by the book. So, when we look at these characters, a lot of us have heard put mueller and comey and at the rest and other names. I was making notes on some of the things that names just pop up and theyre not names that pop up. You get into these characters. Mueller, comey, trump, peter strzok and lisa page, stormy daniels, the mooch, roger stone, and among the cast of character like the bar scene in star wars. Exactly. I found an atlantic connection i didnt realize and that was jay sekulow. I rafe written two book about the Supreme Court, one book called the nine in and lamb whole chapter but jay czech sekulow. He is an important figure in american law and its a he has personally a wild fascinating story. You may want to remind the audience what his role in this im answering it in new York Magazine style. Turn a few pages. Jay grew up in long island and was nice jewish boy from long island. He came to his family moved to atlanta when he was teenager and jay was not a particularly grate great student and he wound up going a school that i dont think goes by this name anymore but Atlanta Baptist college. Didnt ring a bell. Doesnt go by that name anymore. He goes because its local and at that time he has a religious awakening. He becomes a member of a group called Jew Ford Jesus which people may know they do a lot of in airports and other plays and it is not really jewish, it is an evangelical christian group, and jay guess to law at mercer, and then he jay goes to law school at americaer and when he started repping jews for jesus as their lawyer and starts doing First Amendment cases about ju jews for jesus being allowed to pros la ties. He becomes a very effective First Amendment advocate for the evangelical community. Hooks one path Pat Robertson and starts a group called the american for american justice the counterpoint to the aclu and becomes a major figure in the evangelical legal movement. Drives a lot of cases. A lot of media interests, and he ultimate by gets hire as a second in command to john dowd when john dowd is trumps defense lawyer. Hired initially to deal just with the constitutional issues that arise in the Mueller Investigation, but he winds up being the only lawyer who represents trump really from the beginning to the end because dowd gets fired, Rudy Giuliani comes in, but sekulow is the he is a very effective lawyer, and he is particularly effective on the issue that i spend a lot of time on in the book, the issue of whether mueller was going to issue a grand jury subpoena for trumps testimony and would whether that would led to a effect in the Supreme Court. Speak the First Amendment you bring us behind so many doors, the fbi, the Mueller Investigation, the white house, its even the Senate Bathroom with equipped by the chief justice. I depth now how you come up with stuff. One door im especially interested in is the journalism door. As we look at this presidency and the need of journalism, outside of editorial boards, at some point with a lot of publicses, networks, journalists made a turn. Before you wouldnt sigh the president is lying youch would report things, what other people said, but a lot of people and in fact most journalist outside of fox and i watch fox and friends a more than as my milk shake of news but outside of fox, most journalists have made the turn and it seems like from reading the book, you were very evenhanded and factual with everything, and colorful. But at some point you had to have made the turn, too. What was that like at a journalist . It was was a process, and i have work at cnn since 2002. I was hired in the days when cnn was very much an atlantabased company, and i spent a bunch of time at cnn center in atlanta, across the street from the site of the bombing, and the subject of your become and there was a real culture at cnn for many years of super scrupulous evenhandness, that one side says x, the other side says not x and that is our job to report it. Donald trump changed that. Frankly started telling such obvious untruths and this began during the campaign that we he spends attention to the chyrons, the words across the bottom of the screen, and it was during the campaign that when we started using the word false in those chyron because they were false. We didnt we decided and this was made at a higher level than i am at but that there are certain facts, issues, statements, that are not he said she said, simply true or falls and he started laning do labeling them that way. That was a culture change but the first culture change. As the trump president si evolved we started using the word lie because we thought it was an appropriate use, and then our job is to be is to tell the truth and it is not it is the truth, i believe, that trump has lied extravagantly and frequently as president , and ive said as much. So, that was a cultural shift, particularly at cnn, but i think it was reflected in the broaderpedia as well. Uhhuh. We should spent more time on trump and well get questions from the audience, but with trump, aside from the mafia connection you mentioned roy cohen quite a bit which was maybe shouldnt be surprising but was a little surprising. How does roy cohen factor into the donald trump sensibility and ethos. Well, you know, just i think it is fair to say that roy cohen is so far in the past now that most americans need an introduction to who roy cohen his. He is a young lawyer in the 1950s, Joseph Mccarthys top aide, someone who assisted in a particular i disgraceful way the red scare, the red baiting that mccarthy did. Later, in the 60s and 70s he went into private practice in new york city and he became not only a lawyer for donald trump and for his father, fred trump, first, but he became a mentor donald trump, and just to jump ahead, one of the things you often hear from trumps current lawyers is the cry and frustration from the president , where is my roy cohen. Why dont i have a roy cohen, and to what it mens to have a roy cohen. Roy cohen was a deeply corrupt and dishonest lawyer who was ultimately shortly before he died, disbarred by the state of new york and if you know how bad a lot of new new york lawyers at takes a lot to get disbarred in new york state, but cohen managed to do that. And i think the fact that even today trump views roy cohen as the platonic ideal of a lawyer, tells you a lot about his own ethical complex and its shocking to me, but as the four word is think define the Trump Presidency, are, shocking but not surprising, and that is and his affection for roy co i think fits that way because this was a really bad dude. In the book with talking about approaches life, you speak of fair amount about the election and donald trump made the pitch to ill take all copper, help from russia and so forth. And im curious, based on the to last week by sally yatess, peterstroke strzok and others, another election comes up and the topic of russian interference comes and now chinese interference comes up. What are your thoughts based on this research you have done for this book what we might expect in his coming election and you write a lot about the first one. More of the same. One of the things about bullies is that unless they are stopped, they get more and more aggressive and more and more demanding and there is a perfect illustration of that in this story, and it is again, as you said earlier, if you put this in a novel people would say, come on, thats too jult Robert Mueller testifies before the two house committees and he does a bad job. Lets be honest. He is not a clear, effective witness. Didnt want to be there. He was not an impressive performer. It was the last gasp of the Mueller Investigation, and something that trump and his supporters rejoiced at. The next morning, july 25th, donald trump has a long planned phone call with president zelenskiy, the new president of ukraine and thats the famous transcript comes from and thats where he says, look, i want dirt on joe biden and youre innovate getting the military aid unless you come across with material that will help my political trump does this because he gets away with what happened in 2016. Now, i am cautious but what i conclude but the socalled collusion between in 2016. I dont believe there was a meeting of the minds between Vladimir Putin and donald trump. Putin did extraordinary things to get donald trump elected, but i never saw any proof and mueller never established any proof that trump himself made some sort of deal with the russians. Now, maybe some day such a dale will be exposed. Mueller did not go into trumps financial background, his tack returns, maybe theres something there, but i think in fairness it needs to be pointed out that there was no proven collusion between russia and the trump campaign. But there was total collusion between President Trump and what he tried to do in ukraine. He said, i dont care about the American National interests in ukraine. I dont care about the ukrainian people. All i care about in this relationship is getting dirt on my political opponent and he did that because he got away with what happened in 2016. And just finally to answer your question, if he get thursday green light, if he gets reelected, his verdict will be and i think with some justification it was all okay and i can keep doing it and i expect he will. Well, if the New York Times started out with your book, its chilling preview of what is to come if that happens. But going to the questions from he the group, scott said, on the assumption that doesnt happen and there is and trump is out of office, how do you think the fox news and the more media morphs to the right, journalists in history will judge this presidency . Well, thats an interesting question. I think i dont want to get ahead of myself and based on my total failure to predict the outcome of the 2016 election im not going to be here predicting the 2020 election. But look nate silver feels your pain. I can read the polls like anyone else. It is safe to say there is a rome chance that joe biden will win this election and donald trump will lose. Think the question that mr. Is asking what happens then . And i think that is its a very interesting question, and i think the i think there are several possible answers. One of the touchstones of this period in American History has been the abject surrender of the Republican Party to donald trump and its entirety. I know a lot of these republican members of congress. They dont think donald trump is like an honorable, honest man. They know him that see the same thing everybody else sees. But the Republican Party has been so cowed by trump and intimidated by him that its become closer to a personality cult. If he were to lose, what happens then . Do and the a lot of the issued that donald trump stands for to the extent he stands for any issues at all, which are berating allies, building a wall, being against antiimmigration, all of that is not reagans Republican Party. That is not those are not traditional republican decisions, and i dont know if trump republicanism will survive trump or there will be a return to a different kind of republicanism. Think thats one of the big political questions that is hanging out there at the moment. Uhhuh. Thanks. The next question from charles how different would impeachment have been if muellers ten on instruction of justice points had been included in the indictment . Well, in well, in the impeachment. I think its a very good question and i think i think what he means is, what if mueller had come out and said clearly that trump obstruct justice would there have been would that have meant for impeachment . I think the house of representatives would have moved forward on those. Nancy pelosi, who i have interviewed many times including about this, she really did not want to get into impeachment. This was not something she was haunted by the example of what happened to the House Republicans after the clinton impeachment, where a failed impeachment rarely helps the party that initiates it. And muellers ambiguous, i thought confusing and not very useful, conclusion but obstruction of justice allowed pelosi to say, look were just not getting into it, im not going to force my members in vulnerable districts that to take a stand on an issue that is going absolutely nowhere in the senate, and but if mueller had spoken more clearly i dont think Mueller Pelosi would have been able to hold back her caucus. Now, i dont think under any circumstances there would have been 67 votes in the senate to remove trump. The Republican Party is just too allied with him and did not want to be confused or even interested in in the facts of the ukraine matter which i think in many respects was worse than what trump did with regard to obstruction of justice. Continuing on with mueller, couple of questions about how he handled he permanently handled the how he led the office. One question is, he outmatched by the Trump Legal Team and was he at the top of his game not at the top of his game as rumored in some circles. I think, i think mueller aged during this investigation and was not and he was not at the top of his game certainly by the end. But the people around mueller were exceptionally skilled lawyers and i dont think it was necessarily a matter of better lawyering. I do think that john dowd, jay czech e sekulow, Rudy Giuliani for awe his crazy public appearances were smart in the way they stretched out the debate the discuss over the subpoena, that they didnt say no but they didnt say yes, and they negotiated for months and months and months. The story i tell in the book, and they wound up stretching the story out that mueller felt, all i can get is written answers to questions about what went on in the campaign. They were basically useless because they were written by lawyers on the defense team. Really good job for trump. They and they knew that mueller did not want to good on for as long as ken starr did, for as long as Lawrence Walsh did, and so there was some very good lawyering going on there by doing what defense lawyers do, which is delay, delay, delay, and so in that respect i think there was some outlawyering but by and large the failures of the Mueller Office, particularly the one not to be honest about what went on in obstruction of justice, that was really but muellers temperment and values more than about the good lawyers on the other side. Temperment and values in terms of doing what is fair and right since were not going we cant charge him, were going going to sully him . Right. He convinced himself that because under the department of justice policy, sitting president cannot be indicted and that the Justice Department employee he was bound by that policy. He said, well since i cant indict him, he will never get his day in court if i say he committed a crime. So, i am not going to say he committed a crime. Im just going to sort of lay out the facts. And i thought that was unfair double benefit that he gave trump. No indictment and no conclusion, that was really unnecessary but it was indicative of muellers very methodical, fairminored to a fault, approach to his work, which i thought wound up misleading the pentagon about what he actually found. For the benefit of everybody listening, jeff gets into this in really just kind of exciting detail. It does read like a novel and at one point you talked about the ultimate decision not to subpoena. So he negotiated for subpoenas and foot drag in the defense camp which was smart and he could have subpoenaed trump and one over thisliners is asking, like, why depend why didnt he . He and his wife were good friended with the barres, whats up with that . I can certainly that had nothing to do with it. Robert mueller is a highly ethical person and any friendships hi may have had were irrelevant to this or any other decision he made as special counsel. This is a big part of my book why he didnt subpoena him. I was a combination of this clever lawyering, stretching out out and also was concerned that Rod Rosenstein, his superior in the yates department, might not have given him permission to do it because he would have had to ask him for permission. And he also, i think, had a certain built in deference to the president of the united states, and the office of president , not necessarily the current occupant, and he didnt want to spend a year suing the president , which he might in case he might well have lost because this is a more conservative Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh was named to the Supreme Court largely because he has such an expansive view of executive power. I dont think i mean, look. I am giving reasons that mueller and his team gave. I dont think theyre good reasons. I think he should have subpoenaed him but dont think it was out of any sort of krupp motives on muellers part or bad behavior or fear. I just think it was a mistaken view of what his obligations were as the special counsel. Right. As a junior attorney i worked briefly on a case he was involved in. He is marine through and through. No question about that. The ethics are not in question. Another member of the audience cheryl posed a question in the New York Times review it states you predict in the book that trump as attacks on democracy will increase as we approach the election. What are you expecting specifically . Do you expect the efforts to succeed. If so the, what and if not, why . Well, i think it has to do with the voting process. We are our election infrastructure is bad in the best of circumstances. I wrote a book about the recount in florida and one of the things we learned in that drama was that unlike many of our peer nations, we dont have a National Election authority. We have elections that are run by the 50 states, and they do it on the cheap and they do it in a way that is fine to resolve landslide elections but it really bad when you have to count every single vote, and the technology is old, the people who run elections with the policies are also incredibly old and not good and not very well trained, and now we are going to have this election in the middle of this horrible pandemic, and so there is going to be of necessary day great deal more absentee voting and mailin voting, and trump is looking at this as an opportunity to try to scramble the results and claim victory even if he didnt win, and if i can sort of give you a preview im actually doing a store in the new yorker something called the blue shift which is familiar phrase for election lawyers. Historically, particularly in recent history, republicans have voted in person, and democrats have voted by mail more often when hey have the opportunity. Thats not a blanket rule but by and large. What that has meant in self recent elects, particularly for example the Arizona Senate election in 2018 when Martha Mcsally the republican was ahead on Election Night because the mailin votes had not been counted, and once they were counted, senator sin enemy ma won by a substantial margin keep an eye out for that as we count sleet because the president may lead in certain states in the Election Night count, but actually not be ahead when all the votes are counted. But trump could claim victory based on Election Night which could lead to all sorts of peril and conflict and its just something to keep in mind for this difficult election that were facing in 80 days. Well, speaking of peril conflict, what about what is going on with the Postal Service now and how much do you think politics are tied up in that that . Trying to break it apart essentially. If you dont believe in mailin voting, what better way to sabotage the process than to sabotage the Postal Service. That is and the Postal Service, like every other been its a quasibusiness is suffering terribly because of covid and they need injections of money. The president installed a Major Campaign contributor, something who knows nothing about mail as the new postmaster general and its just an example of the weak election infrastructure that we are so vulnerable to the failures of the mail. Now, one advantage that we all have in journalism and in politics is that we are all highly aware of these issues going into the election, so there will be a lot of efforts on the parts of journalists and other participants in the campaign to get people to vote the right way, perhaps vote early if they can, so that their ballots are counted, but its a problem, and if you care but democracy, its really worrisome. This is a little built of a nonsecular, not meaning that Rudy Giuliani doesnt care but democracy but the next question is on Rudy Giuliani. From john. Hes saying what are your thoughts on how much Rudy Giuliani has seemingly changed over the last two years verse him in the 1980s and 90s. Well i know you write about this in the book. Rudy is a major figure in my book. I wrote a profile of him for the new yorker during this whole saga. He is a wild character, and is a say, he did something did two things in the Mueller Investigation that put eight side the morality were very effective. One ofs as i mentioned he helped string out the negotiation over trumps testimony so that he basically made a fait accompli it only be written questions and answer which was indisputable a very good peace of lawyering. Then he started going on tv and fox and other places and demonizing rush mule Robert Mueller who was great if with bipartisan praise when he was named by Rod Rosenstein as a democratic hack. Now i think it was implausible to treat mueller that way, but what giuliani did by demonizing mueller was basically turning the investigation into just another political thing the democrats and republicans fight about. That he took mueller and put him into the political caldron of highly polarized parties we live in for all issues and really sapped the support that mueller had. So, that was a cynically a very effective thing. So i am more complimentary of mueller in of giuliani in the in Mueller Investigation but if you look at the ukraine matter, and if you look at giulianis role in instigating this crazy, outrageous, morally wrong, politically inept, attempt to get ukraine to participate in the 2020 election by investigating the biden family it was a catastrophic failure. It was a disastrous piece of lawyering by giuliani. Giuliani basically singlehandedly got his client impeached, which i think is considered bad if you are the president s lawyer. I have a two very different view of jewel julys role jewel julys role. You have Rudy Giuliani as this crusading u. S. Attorney, clean up ing a mayor creeps up new york city, crusading u. S. Attorney, mob boss can. His reputation is pretty sterling, not a very good go as a president ial candidate but he had a great reputation and a lot of charisma and really and but something really seems to have changed. Youre leaving something out, kent, and i mean no disrespect for the work of u. S. Attorneys but u. S. Attorneys are pretty much always popular because youre always the good guy and youre always bringing down criminals. Thats your whole job. You can do a good job or a bad job and i think he did do a good job at u. S. Attorney but remember, you left out he was mayor of new york for eight years, and that was a very mixed bag and you saw in many respects the roots of the donald Trump Presidency in Rudy Giulianis mayoraltiy. The demonization of opponents, racial insensitivity. The real ugliness. He was redeemed by 9 11 for a period. For reasons frankly i never understood he was viewed as heroic for what he did after 9 11. I was in new york the whole time and never really saw it what the actually did bit the fact is everyone he became very, very popular for a brief period of time. But the polarizing personality of the first seven years and ten months of his mayoralty that was the Rudy Giuliani we saw as a president ial candidate and certainly as the defense lawyer he turn out to be. All right. So, basically had a strong finish in the home stretch according to some people who saw him. Got it. Theres still several questions about the Mueller Report and one going back to that, somebody was asking, theres still a lot that is classified in the Mueller Report. Let the chance of that seeing the light of day. Not very much classified in the Mueller Report. I love my friends at msnbc theyre all saying if the only declassified, if they an did this, trump would come down. There is not like some hidden prosecutorial gold in that report. Moe h most of the most of the stuff kept out of the report in the initial release related to the roger stone case because stone had not yet been tried and that subsequently has been released, and its nothing that didnt come out in stones trial. But the idea that theres some smoking gun of guilt in what mueller found and is somehow under wrap is dont buy that. Speaking of roger stone, you just got so much detail in your book 0 son many things. Does he really have a tattoo of reagan on his back. No. Roger stone or somebody else. No tattoo of richmond nixon. Right d richard nixon. Right, right, i have seen that tattoo in person, and i assure you its richard nixon, not ronald reagan. I wont ask why or how you saw it in person. I wrote for my sins, the one thing i can certainly claim is i am the worlds for most authority on roger stone. I have written so much about him, long new yorker profile of him. A movie about him, i was a so i am sadly an expert on roger stone. Again, he is another figure i think people have wild theories that he was the go20 20 gobetween, between the russians and the campaign irthink rog would have liked to be to the gobetween but he was really on oouts with trump during the campaign and didnt have the access hi watched and was convicted of lying to congress as well he should have been, but he was not someone who was again i dont think he was the linchpin of some conspiracy with russia. Think it was just roger doing his crazy roger thing. In your book at the end you have an authors note. I now know from my singular experience compared to your many and wonderful books, that you do get to say just something you really want to say at the end. Its not really part of the story and you talk about the profession of journalism and fake news and being under fire and talk about everything who helped make the book happened put focused at the very end on your fellow journalists. Actually, id never done anything like this before. The book is dedicated to my fellow journalists. I have fortunately its mitt eight book and i have run out of immediate family to dedicate books to, and i get all their permission to do this, but this has been a really rough time for journalists. Mostly its been a rough time because of the economics. The internet has proven nearly fatal to most newspapers in the country. People in atlanta, who know the difference between the size and resources of the Atlanta Journal constitution in the 1970s and set 80s compared to today. It is still wonderful journalists work there but they just dont have the power or the resources or anything, circulation what they used to and thats true in city after city in this country. Thats part of the story and its a big part of the story. The other part of the story is the sustained political assault that journalist have been under large lilly from the president it, fake news, enemies of the people, and really ugly consequences for a lot of us, personal consequences. Personal attacks and unpleasantness and worse, and i just wanted to say in that authors note and through hi dedication, that what we do matters and we are imperfect messengers always and we make mistakes, but we are indisposable to the functionings of democracy and the way the press covered donald trump for the past three plus years has been something that really toed a hire and be proud of and im proud of the work i did and proud of the work that many of my colleagues did. And i just wanted to take the opportunity to make a bit of a stand and say that our work matters and im proud to be a part of the journalistic world. Well, good for you and well see what comes of this election. The New York Times, as i said talked about your book being a chilling preview if things go wrong and maybe a rod map how to repair things if they go right. Ill wrap up here and ask i want to ask you, anything else you would like to say before i wrap up . A great question so thank you. I am jealous that you are the center of the political universe. You have two senate races, and apparently a competitive president ial race in georgia, so i was going to say, while i expect youll see a lot of journalists down there covering it but most of us are stuck where we are and thats very frustrating to me. One thing i like about journalism is you get to go places places and ask people impertinent questions and i was i was on my way to georgia. If you are able to make it down id love to see you. This book again for everybody, just a really fun and interesting read. Its fascinating, the research is amazing, the writing is amazing and is a said at the start beyond simply being a great read, and sometime as frightening read but a great read issue think you contributed to a body of history when people look back and try to dissect what was happening in america for these few years, i cant imagine a better source for this and for everybody who is listening, first, thanks very much for tuning in on this, second, if you know people who you justtalking to and say, how could you even consider voting for donald trump, and its in your almost like nab flabber gasted and going, i just iant cant believe it, i would recommend that you just by buy jeffs book and hand it to. The its not a its very factual and a great read and you get a seasons of donald trump is and i try not be political but if somebody leads this reads this book, true crimes and minneapoliss and votes for donald trump, just shame on them. So thanks so much. I dont know you said that, not me. I do endorse your suggestion that people should everybody buy the book. Absolutely. I dont know if we ill wait for frank. I dont know if were im polessed to wrap this is the up or frank appears on then screen. Jeff. Thanks for a terrific conversation. Thanks and thanks for a terrific book. Buy it for friends, buy it for yourself. Thanks a lot, jeff. Goodbye. Tonight 0 look at the effort. John hershey to report on the shortterm and longterm fee, odd American Bombing of hire row shima in 1945. Thoughted how to improve the american political system. And activist sean king reflect behind involvement in social justice movements. The 2020 election, and nickelson baker talks challenges he faced uncovering a secret 1950s air force program credited to develop chemical and biological weapons. That is all airing this evening on booktv. We are joined by the books