Thank you, W.W. Norton & Company, for providing this book for review consideration in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. This book will be released on August 27.
Mr. Book just finished Where Tyranny Begins: The Justice Department, The FBI And The War On Democracy, by David Rohde.
This is my second book that I’ve read by David Rohde. I previously read In Deep: The FBI, The CIA And The Truth About America’s “Deep State” in July 2020 and gave that an A.
The book does a great job looking at the interference between Trump and the DOJ (which includes the FBI). That story begins with how Comey helped Trump by his actions during the 2016 campaign and then continues with the interference between Trump and the Russian investigation after he took office.
I was disappointed with the coverage of the Mueller report and Barr’s whitewashing. I thought the book could have gone into more discussion of those important issues. But, that does not detract from the overall quality of this book.
The book otherwise provided great coverage of both Barr’s terrible tenure as AG, as well very good coverage of him standing up to Trump while he was trying to have the election overturned. But, even considering the latter, legal ethics expert Stephen Gillers correctly stated, “The few times Barr put the nation ahead of the president will not atone for the many times he chose the opposite. He left a wounded department.”
The book does a very good job discussing Merrick Garland’s failures by moving so slowly in the cases against Trump once for the first few years of his tenure as Attorney General. The book does a great job discussing the cases and investigations that have subsequently been undertaken against Trump.
Rohde accurately sums the problem when he says that in the past seven years, “Trump has successfully used conspiracy theories, co-option and threats to bend DOJ and FBI officials to his will to a greater extent than publicly known. Those who dared to defy him had their reputations damaged and their careers derailed. Current and former DOJ and FBI officials told me that they did not want to be named because they feared that Trump and his supporters would destroy their reputations, careers and businesses and potentially harm them and their families. That is not the rule of law. That is not democracy.”
I give this book an A. Goodreads requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, an A equates to 5 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star). After I finished reading this, I purchased the audio version so I will also be able to listen to it.
This review has been posted at Goodreads and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews
Mr. Book originally finished reading this on August 14, 2024.
