Where Law Ends
Inside the Mueller Investigation
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4.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In the first and only inside account of the Mueller investigation, one of the special counsel’s most trusted prosecutors breaks his silence on the team’s history-making search for the truth, their painstaking deliberations and costly mistakes, and Trump’s unprecedented efforts to stifle their report.
“Weissmann delivers the kind of forceful, ringing indictment that Mueller’s report did not.”—The New York Times
In May 2017, Robert Mueller was tapped to lead an inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, coordination by foreign agents with Donald Trump’s campaign, and obstruction of justice by the president. Mueller assembled a “dream team” of top prosecutors, and for the next twenty-two months, the investigation was a black box and the subject of endless anticipation and speculation—until April 2019, when the special counsel’s report was released.
In Where Law Ends, legendary prosecutor Andrew Weissmann—a key player in the Special Counsel’s Office—finally pulls back the curtain to reveal exactly what went on inside the investigation, including the heated debates, painful deliberations, and mistakes of the team—not to mention the external efforts by the president and Attorney General William Barr to manipulate the investigation to their political ends.
Weissmann puts the reader in the room as Mueller’s team made their most consequential decisions, such as whether to subpoena the president, whether to conduct a full financial investigation of Trump, and whether to explicitly recommend obstruction charges against him. Weissmann also details for the first time the debilitating effects that President Trump himself had on the investigation, through his dangling of pardons and his constant threats to shut down the inquiry and fire Mueller, which left the team racing against the clock and essentially fighting with one hand tied behind their backs.
In Where Law Ends, Weissmann conjures the camaraderie and esprit de corps of the investigative units led by the enigmatic Mueller, a distinguished public servant who is revealed here, in a way we have never seen him before, as a manager, a colleague, and a very human presence. Weissmann is as candid about the team’s mistakes as he is about its successes, and is committed to accurately documenting the historic investigation for future generations to assess and learn from. Ultimately, Where Law Ends is a story about a team of public servants, dedicated to the rule of law, tasked with investigating a president who did everything he could to stand in their way.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Attorney Weissmann delivers a lucid and engrossing insider's look at Special Counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Assigned to lead the team investigating Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort (other teams examined Russian interference and potential obstruction of justice), Weissmann critiques prior investigations by the Justice Department into these and other matters; introduces key players including Mueller's chief of staff, Aaron Zebley; and details internal disagreements over the scope and purpose of the inquiry. Weissmann takes particular issue with Zebley's directive not to subpoena financial records that might have illuminated Trump's ties to Russia, in order to preserve the possibility of an in-person interview with the president (which never happened). Though he laments Mueller's decision not to say outright whether Trump committed obstruction of justice, Weissmann contends that Mueller acted out of "deference to the ideal of fairness and our democratic institutions," and had no reason to suspect that Attorney General William Barr would "purposely distort our report's factual findings." Weissmann provides valuable context behind the special counsel's most consequential decisions, though readers will wonder why he didn't speak up more forcefully as the investigation unfolded. Still, this is an essential record of what the Mueller investigation proved and why it failed to bring Trump down.
