The 7 p.m. embargo lifted so my real news story on Andrew Weissmann's book, not just aggregating tidbits from the Atlantic essay, has pubbed. If you clicked that link before, I urge you read it again now to get my real take of what is interesting. /1 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/us/politics/andrew-weissmann-mueller.html

In some ways Weissmann's book is written more clearly than Mueller report. It builds up to the climax of learning that Manafort gave Kilimnik (a Russian intel agent, per SSCI) campaign strategy/polling & Kilimnik seeking a wink from Trump that Russia could take eastern Ukraine./2

It contains all kinds of interesting nuggets. Like how that business account Michael Cohen used to send the hush money payments to Stormy Daniels had Russian oligarch money flowing into it. /3

And that President Trump's lawyers, Ty Cobb, promised to give Mueller's team advance warning if Trump was about to fire them./4

Or how their worries that Trump would fire them and his DOJ would shred the evidence they had gathered, they started stuffing everything they were learning into their search warrant applications so a copy would be in the courthouse safe, beyond Trump's reach. /5

Weissmann recounts an early shot across the bow from the WH when it somehow learned SCO had subpoenaed DeutscheBank -- for info about Manafort's $, not Trump's, though WH didn't know that -- as pushing them toward timidity in not investigating his finances./6

The book is rocks left unturned -- not just Trump's finances and not subpoenaing him for testimony, but things like not talking to Ivanka Trump, and not seeking Trump Organization emails about the negotiations over a Trump Tower Moscow project./7

Weissmann does not say whether Donald Trump Jr. received a grand jury subpoena and invoked his 5th Amendment rights to avoid testifying. But his extensive discussion of how they could have immunized him to take care of that possible problem suggests it may be what happened. /8

Weissmann blames Aaron Zebley, Mueller's deputy, for being overly cautious on such matters - Mueller often recedes in the narrative. Usually Zebley had Mueller's sanction, but on one occasion he appears to have made a commitment on his own. This is disputed, however. /9

The special counsel rules called for telling Congress if Rosenstein overruled Mueller on any investigative step. Mueller was so determined to avoid any sign of disagreement between himself and DOJ that he never directly asked to subpoena Trump and time ran out. /10

Weissmann talks about the intense pressures -- Trump's ability to fire them and dangle pardons at potential witnesses, and the withering vilification Trump & allies leveled at them. He defends himself from the angry Democrat charge./11

In an interview, I asked him about the latest insinuations re SCO phones being erased, including his own phone twice wiping because he entered the wrong passcode too many times. He said he believed their phone data was backed up by DOJ. /12

There was lots more I had no room for. With most DC books you have to plow through lots of aggregation for a few nuggets of new information & anecdotes. I found this very different. Whatever you think about the Mueller investigation, this was an unusually interesting read. /end