MixedThe Washington PostAt times the book seems more interested in Giuliani’s troubled marriage than his estranged relationship with reality, but \'the ex-wife made him do it\' defense offered by some of Giuliani’s former advisers feels like a too-convenient excuse, since after the divorce he became even more closely tied to Trump ... What happened to Rudy Giuliani? The more pressing question posed by Kirtzman’s book is what happened to us, that it took so long to see it.
William P Barr
MixedThe Washington PostBarr can tell a good yarn and has a penchant for deadpan punchlines ... Barr’s account of Trump’s obsession with arresting his perceived political enemies is often told with a sense of humor that is more than a little unsettling, as if he is describing not the commander in chief but a cranky sitcom dad whose declarations prompt head shakes, eye rolls and a laugh track ... Barr engaged in some of the same conduct he now decries ... By comparison, the chapters Barr devotes to more conventional issues like school vouchers come as a kind of relief, even if they often read as an airing of grievances for conservative lawyers — a Festivus for the Federalist Society ... His book is not for those prosecutors, nor is it for those eager for shocking details about Trump’s conduct behind closed doors. Barr’s book is really a defense of his tenure to fellow conservatives — and a call to dump Trump in 2024.
Frank Figliuzzi
PositiveThe Washington PostFrank Figliuzzi has a simpler message to impart: The vaunted FBI, for all its recent public controversies, still sets a gold standard for excellence and ethics that should be followed more widely ... Books by retired FBI agents are a genre unto themselves, and Figliuzzi’s is in the spirit of earlier tomes that combine federal-agent tradecraft with a dash of self-improvement advice ... Figliuzzi’s version is more far-reaching, arguing that the world can benefit not from particular FBI skills but from the organization’s principles of accuracy and accountability ... Figliuzzi also applies his judgment to some of the FBI’s more recent, high-profile ethical questions, faulting former director James B. Comey for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation ... a worthwhile exploration of the age-old question of who polices the police, how they do it and to what end, but it never really grapples with the broader implications of the bureau’s recent history.
Andrew Weissmann
RaveThe Washington PostFor nearly two years, the least knowable place in Washington was the office of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, as he and his team investigated President Trump and his allies. Where Law Ends sets aside the secrecy that long shielded them, revealing a team of prosecutors whose mission, in their minds, was always in jeopardy ... burns like an old-fashioned 150-watt bulb, delivering light and heat in equal measure ... Weissmann carries the anger of someone who believed in the mission and the man who led it, but is profoundly disappointed by the outcome ... what sets Weissmann apart from many of his peers is not his intensity but his willingness to criticize colleagues he finds lacking in that regard. And he doles out plenty of criticism. The most interesting judgment rendered in Where Law Ends is that Mueller’s effectiveness was inexorably diminished by the ever-present threat of Trump firing them all ... Disconcertingly, Weissmann’s central metaphor for this debate inside the Mueller team is from the Civil War ... After years of silence from Mueller’s cloister, capped by a final report so dense with legal analysis that even Weissmann found it unsatisfying, Where Law Ends is a gift — a clarifying piece of history, wrapped up in our era’s boundless anger and suspicion.
Patrick Radden Keefe
PositiveThe Washington Post\"... a fresh accounting of the moral balance sheet not just for those killed but for those who did the killing ... Keefe’s description of McConville’s killing is haunting, and it seems to have haunted her killers ... As a cautionary tale, Say Nothing speaks volumes — about the zealotry of youth, the long-term consequences of violence and the politics of forgetting.\
