WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th June, 2019) Journalist Michael Wolff has written with a book about the embattled White House called "Siege: Trump Under Fire," which came out in the United States on Tuesday.
The book continues the tradition of controversial storytelling about the most unusual president in US history. As critics and Wolff's fans note, it is impossible to verify the accuracy of the book, which is based mostly on stories from anonymous sources.
Wolff's previous book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," became a sensation, topping the bestseller list of the biggest internet store Amazon and selling more than 4 million copies. The second book is so far eighth in the bestseller list and has already received its share of criticism.
Of course, the main critic is the White House, to which Wolff was given unprecedented access.
"Michael Wolff's first book was destroyed for its countless inaccuracies, made up accounts, and use of shady sources with personal political agendas that even the author himself admitted to. This latest book is just another attempt by Wolff to line his own pockets by pushing lies and pure fantasy aimed at attacking the president," White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said.
Wolff's statement that US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who handled the Trump-Russia investigation, was preparing to file criminal charges against the president on three counts and even drafted a charge sheet has gotten a lot of criticism. Mueller's office has categorically denied this claim, and a number of journalists have pointed out that the format of the document to which Wolff refers did not look like Mueller's usual ones.
It is not surprising that even US news network CNN, which Trump has branded as "fake news" over its negative coverage of him, has urged caution when considering the claims listed in the book.
Trump's former political adviser, Steve Bannon, was one of the main sources for the book. Bannon's revelations in Wolff's first book had led to his firing from the White House, so he had nothing to lose this time around. In "Siege," Bannon called Trump's holding company a "criminal organization," and predicted that the president would ultimately be exposed as a fraud who was a mere millionaire and not the billionaire he claimed to be.
"This is where it isn't a witch hunt � even for the hard core, this is where he turns into just a crooked business guy, and one worth $50 [million] instead of $10 [billion]. Not the billionaire he said he was, just another scumbag," Bannon said about his former mentee and idol.
Wolff agreed with Bannon and called Trump's company a "semi-criminal enterprise."
As one example of Trump's opaque financial transactions, Wolff named the referenced the time in 2008 when the future president bought a luxury mansion in Florida for $40 million, and then, after making a minor renovation, resold the house to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev for $96 million.
Without providing any evidence, Wolff suggested that Trump bought this house not for himself but for some mysterious buyer who wanted to stay off the radar. Wolff even assumed, also with no evidence, that Rybolovlev was the real owner and buyer of this house, and he therefore laundered the extra $56 million by de facto paying it to himself.
However, Trump's critics, including those with a hunger for spicy details about his life, have suggested treating the book with caution since Wolff did not fact check his book.
In particular, the sound technician who worked with Trump on The Apprentice reality show told Wolff a story about when an attractive interior designer, who was pitching a project to Trump, "hitched a ride on Trump's plane."
"He led her into the bedroom with a mirrored ceiling ... She comes out, half an hour later, dress ripped off, staggering out. She sits in the seat ... and then he comes out with his tie off, shirt untucked and says, 'Fellas ... just got laid,'" the book quoted the technician as saying.
At the same time, Wolff told The New York Times newspaper in an interview that he had not even thought of asking the White House or Trump about sexual harassment allegations contained in the book.
"I didn't contact Donald Trump at all. But why would you? Literally, this is not a man who is going to suddenly at this point of his life 'fess up to being a sexual harasser," the author said to the newspaper.
These words stirred up a firestorm of criticism.
"Michael Wolff thinks reporting is a waste of time," a reporter from The Washington Times, Andrew Beaujon, said.
Ted Mann, a Wall Street Journal reporter, wrote on Twitter that failure to seek "comment from people he wrote about would get you fired from a high school newspaper."
At the same time, the book contains more gossip than it does incriminating details. Wolff is delighted to plunge into the world of White House intrigues, where everyone fights everyone with the help of news leaks.
Wolff describes in detail the love life of former White House communications director Hope Hicks, who, according to the author, chose the worst guys in the White House, including White House staff secretary Rob Porter, who was accused of beating his ex-wives. According to Wolff, everyone knew about Hicks' affairs except for Trump himself, who used to ask everyone in a very rude manner about who Hicks was sleeping with.
Wolff implied that Trump was having an affair with his ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, who has denied these claims. Also, Trump, according to Wolff, had an affair with a certain junior employee of the White House.
The book goes on to claim that the president got on everyone's nerves with his big talk, with even conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch allegedly saying of Trump: "I can't get the asshole off the phone."
Wolff wrote that Trump was not just different from other presidents but was unlike anyone who any of us had ever met, meaning that everyone who was close to him felt the need to explain his behavior.
"A basic requirement of working there [in the White house] is, surely, the willingness to ... delegitimize the truth ... this has caused some of the same people who've undermined the public trust to become private truth-tellers... Interviewing such Janus-faced sources creates a dilemma, for it requires depending on people who lie to also tell the truth � and who also might later disavow the truth they have told," Wolff summed up.
