Wolff2018FireAndFury.html

Fire and Fury

Inside the Trump White House

[... 237-page pdf file ...]

CONTENTS pdf6

AUTHOR’S NOTE
PROLOGUE: AILES AND BANNON
1. ELECTION DAY
2. TRUMP TOWER
3. DAY ONE
4. BANNON
5. JARVANKA
6. AT HOME
7. RUSSIA
8. ORG CHART
9. CPAC
10. GOLDMAN
11. WIRETAP
12. REPEAL AND REPLACE
13. BANNON AGONISTES
14. SITUATION ROOM
15. MEDIA
16. COMEY
17. ABROAD AND AT HOME
18. BANNON REDUX
19. MIKA WHO?
20. MCMASTER AND SCARAMUCCI
21. BANNON AND SCARAMUCCI
22. GENERAL KELLY
EPILOGUE: BANNON AND TRUMP
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INDEX

Analysis by Will Zuzak:

Wolff2018FireAndFury.pdf

Almost by definition and of necessity, Michael Wolff's book reads more like a gossip column rather than a well-researched book, since Wolff had manouvered himself to be the "fly-on-the-wall" during the election campaign and thereafter. Particularly striking is that nobody in the Trump campaign (including Donald Trump himself) had expected Trump to win, such that they were shocked and unprepared when Trump actually won on 08Nov2016. The transition was very chaotic and this chaos has continued to the present day.

The second striking observation is the support (both advisory and financial) that Trump received from many of his rich old friends, which are referred to randomly throughout the book and are referenced in the index. [Note, however, that the page numbers in the index do not correspond to the pdf page numbers. It may be easiest to use the Ctrl-F search function to find the desired names.] The names that stand out are Roger Ailes (deceased 10May2017) and Rupert Murdock (media moguls), Tom Barrack, Rudy Giulani, Goldman Sachs personnel, Carl Icahn, Rebekah and Robert Mercer, and Stephen Schwarzman.

The ill-fated 09Jun2016 meeting in the Trump Tower involving Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort with Natalia Veselnitskaya, her interpreter and others is only sketchily described. However, news of this meeting "leaked" when Donald Trump and Jared and Ivanka Kushner were attending the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany on 07/08Jul2017. On the trip home on Air Force I, they concocted a coverup story that the meeting was strictly about adoption of Russian orphans: "Included in the discussion on the plane were the president, Hicks, Jared and Ivanka, and their spokesperson, Josh Raffel." Over the ensuing several days the cover story changed progreessively and caused a deep rift wiithin the Trump team. (See pdf 183 to 187.)

Although there are many interesting and titillating episodes outlined in the book, we will not try to reproduce them.

Ukraine references:

This website is dedicated to reporting on Ukrainian affairs and Ukraine. A Ctrl-F search for "Ukrain" yields only 3 hits. "Manafort" yields about 11 hits -- mostly with reference to Viktor Yanukovych (former pro-Russian President of Ukraine) and Oleg Deripaska (Russian Oligarch).

Of more concern are the 8 hits for Ukrainophobe Henry Kissinger, who developed his views on Russia-Ukraine while serving in the OSS (forerunner of the CIA) and interacting with the Soviet NKVD. [It is well known that the Roosevelt administration and the OSS were deeply infiltrated by Soviet spies and intelligence personnel.] Vladimir Putin received Mr. Kissinger in the Kremlin in Moscow on 29Jun2017 for undisclosed reasons.

pdf 37 -- "One of Kushner’s now-frequent wise-men callers was Henry Kissinger. Kissinger, who had been a front-row witness when the bureaucracy and intelligence community revolted against Richard Nixon, outlined the kinds of mischief, and worse, that the new administration could face."

pdf 62 -- "Kushner called up the ninety-three-year-old Kissinger for advice. This was both to flatter the old man and to be able to drop his name, but it was also actually for real advice." -- to arrange meeting with Mexican President.

pdf 106 -- " "Henry Kissinger says Jared is going to be the new Henry Kissinger," Trump said more than once, rather a combined compliment and slur."

pdf 108 -- "In the Trump White House, observed Henry Kissinger, "it is a war between the Jews and the non-Jews." "

pdf 140 --"The following day, the president and several of his top aides flew to Florida for a meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping -- a meeting organized by Kushner with the help of Henry Kissinger."

pdf 162 -- "It was Kissingeresque realpolitik. Kissinger himself, long familiar with Trump by way of the New York social world and now taking Kushner under his wing, was successfully reinserting himself, helping to organize meetings with the Chinese and the Russians."

pdf 163 -- "This represented a queasy-making mishmash of thought. Bannon’s isolationism (a pox on all your houses -- and keep us out of it); Flynn’s anti-Iranism (of all the world’s perfidy and toxicity, there is none like that of the mullahs); and Kushner’s Kissingerism (not so much Kissingerism as, having no point of view himself, a dutiful attempt to follow the ninety-four-year-old’s advice)."

pdf 164 -- "The Chinese, who Trump had oft maligned during the campaign, came to Mar-a-Lago for a summit advanced by Kushner and Kissinger."

[END]