True Crimes and Misdemeanors

The Investigation of Donald Trump

By: Jeffrey Toobin

Narrated by: Rob Shapiro

From CNN chief legal analyst and best-selling author Jeffrey Toobin, a real-life legal thriller about the prosecutors and congressional investigators pursuing the truth about Donald Trump's complicity in several crimes - and why they failed.

Donald Trump's campaign chairman went to jail. So did his personal lawyer. His long-time political consigliere was convicted of serious federal crimes, and his national security advisor pled guilty to others. Several Russian spies were indicted in absentia. Career intelligence agents and military officers were alarmed enough by the president's actions that they alerted senior government officials and ignited the impeachment process.

Yet despite all this, a years-long inquiry led by special counsel Robert Mueller, and the third impeachment of a president in American history, Donald Trump survived to run for re-election. Why?

Jeffrey Toobin's highly entertaining definitive account of the Mueller investigation and the impeachment of the president takes listeners behind the scenes of the epic legal and political struggle to call Trump to account for his misdeeds. With his superb storytelling and analytic skills Toobin recounts all the mind-boggling twists and turns in the case - Trump's son met with a Russian operative promising Kremlin support! Trump paid a porn star $130,000 to hush up an affair! Rudy Giuliani and a pair of shady Ukrainian-American businessmen got the Justice Department to look at Russian-created conspiracy theories! Toobin shows how Trump's canny lawyers used Mueller's famous integrity against him, and how Trump's bullying and bluster cowed Republican legislators into ignoring the clear evidence of the impeachment hearings.

Based on dozens of interviews with prosecutors in Mueller's office, Trump's legal team, Congressional investigators, White House staffers, and several of the key players, including some who are now in prison, True Crimes and Misdemeanors is a revelatory narrative that makes sense of the seemingly endless chaos of the Trump years.

Filled with never-before-reported details of the high-stakes legal battles and political machinations, the book weaves a tale of a rogue president guilty of historic misconduct, and how he got away with it.

©2020 Jeffery Toobin (P)2020 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Authoritative... A smart recap of the past four years, punctuated by insider details about the investigations and Toobin’s judgments on the lawyering skills and ethics of various players. The author has no patience for James Comey’s sanctimony and 'faux humility.' ...Rosenstein is 'disoriented and out of his depth,' committing legal and political 'malpractice' by letting Trump use him to justify Comey’s firing. And Barr is “sycophantic,” a 'toady' who evolved from 'principled conservative to Trump apologist.'" (Washington Post)

"At some point in the future, it is entirely possible that the full details of Donald Trump's business affairs, personal imbroglios and political maneuverings will be laid bare to the public. Should that happen, it is easy to imagine much of the world wondering how the man got away with so much for so long. In that hour, readers may well turn to True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump....This work is more than a journalist emptying his notebook of all his interviews and insights. It is more than a legal expert analyzing how the best work of talented and committed lawyers could be frustrated by governmental rules and rivalries within the executive and legislative powers in our federal system. Perhaps its highest function is as a condensation of the best evidence against the presidency and character of Donald Trump, a summation offered up much as a prosecutor would do in seeking to sway a jury." (Ron Elving, NPR.org)

Well explained

Jeffrey Toobin does an excellent job of putting the whole sequence of events together. I enjoyed the scattered extraneous details, and the bios of the invoked people. Excellent narration.

One of the very best chronologies of Trump admin.

I have followed the Donald Trump disaster phenomenon fairly closely from his primary run (and even earlier - his Atlantic City casino era) up until recently. Along the way, I have read several books regarding this era such as "Compromised.... ', 'It Was All a Lie"; "A Very Stable Genius"; "Impeach: the Case Against Donald Trump"; "A Warning"; "Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money…" "Unbelievable: My Front Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History"; "Will He Go?" "Fire and Fury"; "Trumped: the Inside Story of the Real Donald Trump"; "The Making of Donald Trump."

Several of these books have been quite good reads and able to shed light on more of the dark corners of the Trump business--administration. For chronology and detail about Trump's administration, this book, "True Crimes and Misdemeanors" and "A Very Stable Genius" are excellent. For detail on the Mueller Report, I really liked "Compromised."

True Crimes has depth and readability; it progresses with nice pacing and coherency. It includes additional details I had not found in similar chronologies of the Trump era. The Audible version with narration by Rob Shapiro is singularly well recorded. Jeffery Toobin's book is a masterpiece of Trump reporting in what has become a large field of similar books. Rob Shapiro and Jeffery Toobin go very well together! Overall, I liked this book best with Compromised by Peter Strzok a close second.

This book is highly recommended for people wanting to understand not only events in "Trump-world," but the sequence and some background of some of the players. (Rudy Giuliani's hapless and clueless sidekicks come to mind.)

Incredible!!!!

This book should be the high school and college textbook for the political history of this horrid era. The election is 60 days away - if Trump refuses to concede he should be impeached again to give the cowardly Republican senators one final chance to redeem themselves before the bar of history. Let his removal then be immediate.

Best book on the subject of the administration and Donald Trump himself.

This is a fascinating and well written book regarding the events that lead to the impeachment hearings of President Donald Trump and his acquittal. Jeffrey Toobin is a solid reporter. The tone of the book is straightforward with a defined understanding of the timeline and progression.
Mr. Toobin lays out important backdrop information to create a context relevant to all the individuals cited in the book. And I appreciated that the focus was on the subject matter versus the writer himself. I absolutely recommend this book. It is very impressive.

Best of many!

I have read all the books covering Trump and this period in history. This book is scholarly and thorough and exceptionally clear. There is a lot of new personal color that came from interviews with many of the main players and lots of inside information on the Mueller inquiry as well as the impeachment. For the majority of the book, I thought the account was straight reporting without bias. Toward the denouement, the author’s bias becomes more apparent. Since I totally share his bias, I thought the book was a terrific recounting of recent history, well researched, and highly readable.

Best book on the subject so far

I've read/listened to every book out on this subject. This book is the best, most accessible, easiest to understand. If you only want to read/listen to one book on the crimes of the trump administration.
Thank you Mr. Toobin.
And excellent presentation by Mr. Shapiro.

Insights were a revelation

The details and individual profiles of key persons provided deep insight into the decisions and influences on these highly publicized events.
Narration was a perfect cadence too.

Fascinating book.

Incredibly detailed and thorough. Appreciate the amount of work the author put into this important summarization of what’s happened to our country under the influence of Trump.

TRUMP IS GUILTY AS HELL !!!

trump needs to be put in prison or in a padded room where he cannot lie to anybody and has no power. trump must be stopped !!!

Mandatory Reading

This book is superb. Such a clear, beautifully articulated chronicle of President Trump’s actions and intended actions in his own self interest and the reactions and actions of those around him — those who reported them and those who enabled them.