Summary of the Mueller Report, for those too busy to read it all

by Thomas E Patterson

An abridged version of the Mueller Report intended for those who don't have the time to read the 448-page full report. This version, which is a fourth of the length, uses the exact words of the Mueller Report to relate the key findings of the Special Counsel’s investigation. The abridged version includes an introduction by Thomas E. Patterson, who is Bradlee Professor of Government & the Press at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. The introduction explains why it is important for Americans to read the Mueller Report and describes the rules that guided the abridgment in order to create an unbiased but shortened version of the Mueller Report.

130 pages, Paperback

Published June 22, 2019

Reviews

[Adam Gutschenritter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ultimately what I seem to have gotten from this book is that the evidence is there that Trump might have done exactly what he was accused of. However, the combination of Mueller not feeling it was his place to call for an impeachment and Trump's incompetence at the political maneuvering (or after reading this a very tiny chance he is a genius and literally has everyone fooled) kept him safe because there is no way someone this incompetent could have actually had the forethought needed to actually impede and obstruct this investigation.

[N. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please note that this is a summary of Volume II of The Mueller Report, the part about obstruction of justice. There are 10 or 11 specific charges of potential obstruction noted. In other words, DJT did a lot of obstructing, although there were no charges because he’s a sitting president. The first volume describes Russian interference, which is eye-popping, so I still recommend reading the full report if you can find the time. If you can’t, this book is great for getting a good look at what the president did and did not do to:

A. Try to stop the investigation,
B. Try to limit the investigation to future election interference,
C. Try to get various people to do jobs they shouldn’t, deliver uncomfortable messages, lie, fire people, etc.,
D. Try to not-so-subtly convince people not to “flip” and work with the government when they were caught lying,

And much more. Very readable and much easier than reading the text and footnotes of the full report, plus reading around the redactions. I appreciated it for the continuity.

NOTE: If it's not obvious, I have read the full report. You have to read around the redactions and look back and forth between the text and the footnotes to get the full picture. The benefit of this "summary" (really an abridgment) is that it flows like regular reading material. There are no footnotes at all and very few redactions.