Compromised Counterintelligence and the threat of Donald J. Trump

In this carefully worded and intermittently intriguing account, former FBI agent Strzok offers an inside look at investigations into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server as secretary of state, and links between Donald Trump's campaign and Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Readers hoping for details about Strzok's extramarital relationship with his colleague Lisa Page, which came to light during an inquiry into allegations that text messages the two exchanged revealed "improper political bias," will be disappointed. Strzok declines to delve into the "terrible personal decisions" that contributed to his dismissal from the FBI and fueled speculation that he was part of an anti-Trump conspiracy. Instead, he details his role in Operation Ghost Stories, the FBI case that inspired the TV show The Americans; blames Clinton for "unforced error" that dragged out the scandal over her emails; and suggests that national security adviser Michael Flynn "baldly lied" to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials because he was either "deep in denial" or "too naive to know how much trouble he was in." Throughout, Strzok credibly defends the professionalism of America's intelligence agencies and provides an intimate and impassioned perspective on how "Trump's bullying broken the system." Still, this circumspect account is unlikely to lay any of the accusations against Strzok and his former colleagues to rest. (Sept.)

"If the American people had known what we did at the time of the election, they would have been appalled." Former FBI official Strzok recounts the events of 2016. One of many FBI executives fired for bringing his inquiries too close to the Oval Office, Strzok delivers the news that Trump was indeed under investigation even as a candidate--and then as president. The reasons are almost self-evident to anyone who remembers that he publicly asked for Russian help in winning his post, following it up almost immediately after being impeached with requests for help to another foreign power for the current electoral cycle. Strzok was in charge of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's infamous emails. "The fact is that if Clinton's email had been housed on a State Department system," writes the author, "it would have been less secure and probably much more vulnerable to hacking." All the same, they released a finding calling it "extremely careless," which certainly cost Clinton votes. The attention devoted to scrutinizing Clinton's email, Strzok suggests, may well have kept the agency from spotting signs of Russian interference until it was too late. The author takes pains to clarify that the Mueller Report by no means exonerates Trump, though Trump's attorney general interpreted it that way; he adds that the FBI could certainly have dealt damage to Trump's campaign, as it did Clinton's, simply by hinting at what it knew about his ties to Russia. Among Trump's failings, however, has been his habit of underestimating the abilities and powers of the intelligence community as well as his penchant to ignore good advice--e.g., when his aides urged him not to congratulate Putin on winning his own rigged election, Trump did so anyway. Strzok corroborates numerous other accounts of Trump's malfeasance, and he worries that Russian interference will be even more pronounced in the 2020 race given "Donald Trump's willingness to further the malign interests of one of our most formidable adversaries, apparently for his own personal gain." An important addition to the ever expanding library of Trumpian crimes. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.