And just as Trump railed against Bannon after Wolff’s book came out, he is now railing against McGahn, though in both cases it was his own decision (to allow Wolff White House access, to waive executive privilege and to allow aides to cooperate with Mueller) that made the revelations possible. But at the same time, the Mueller report also reaches roughly the same conclusion about the Russia-collusion story that “Fire and Fury” offered. But the report makes the idea of an active, directed conspiracy — of the sort popularized by the Steele dossier, various faulty news reports and deep-state “experts” and the Resistance industry — seem as implausible as Wolff’s White House sources insisted. Just to read the Mueller report’s paragraphs on the change to the G.O.P. convention platform on Ukraine, long a minor locus of Putin-Trump quid pro quo conspiracy theorizing, is sufficient to recognize how much freelancing and chaos dominated the Trump campaign, and how little direction was offered from above.

Source: New York Times April 20, 2019 18:33 UTC