The Mueller report is still a ways away, but it's astounding and a bit depressing how much we know about Russian influence in the 2016 presidential campaign--or for that matter how much was known at the time. This narrative adds color to Washington Post reporting through 2018, from the trolls in St. Petersburg to the trolls in Washington. Not much new here, though--we're sadder but wiser.

This book, written by a Washington Post reporter, is about everything the Russians did in the 2016 election, Although much of the information in the book has been reported in the newspaper, the book puts everything in context, and provides analysis and more detail. Seeing everything laid out so clearly is bone-chilling, all the more so when it is set forth so logically and clearly, rather than in the snippets and bits and pieces of the daily news reports. If you read this book and are not convinced that the country is in deep trouble, you are being willfully blind.
This is one of the best books I've read on this subject, connecting all the fragments, as we teeter from one crisis to the other (forgetting prior crises as new ones arise). The book confronts us with just how unprecedented and horrific these past few years have been. ( )

This is a well researched and comprehensive look at the presidential election of 2016 and the role Russia played in it. While watching the news every day has provided me with a great deal of insights into this topic, reading books such as Miller's helps put it all together. There is no question in my mind that Russia used a variety of methods to disrupt out electoral process and to put Donald Trump in the White House to benefit themselves. We are in a frightening time in our country's history and those who choose to bury their heads in the sand need to sit down and read a book as this one to truly understand why there needs to be some major changes, especially a new president in 2020. ( )

Greg Miller’s “The Apprentice” (what a great title!) is a well-done telling of the Trump-Russia investigation through August 2018; Miller is a national security reporter for the Washington Post. It covers everything in its 394 pages including Comey’s firing, the Wikileaks, Mueller investigation, Trump-Putin meetings, Sessions recusal, Russians at the White House, and concludes with Helsinki. And that’s it’s biggest problem. Most of the readers who are interested enough in these topics have probably followed along quite closely with the events as they unfolded and will find too little that is new here.

There are no bombshells. Perhaps a sprinkling of interesting insights and asides, but that’s it. In Woodward’s “Fear”, I found the author’s comments about Rob Porter to be very interesting, and a bit of new news. Consequently, my opinion of his professional contributions to the President and to the country turned 180 degrees. There were similar revelations for me in “The Apprentice” of two officials that were almost as surprising for this reader. Miller mentions in passing the number of key investigations in which disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok played a key role – the Richard Reid shoe bombing attempt, the Snowden defection, the Steele Dossier, 9/11; clearly and sadly this was an important guy, a lead investigator for the most critical cases – and the FBI lost a key asset with his termination. The other is Rod Rosenstein. Again, nothing new here, but as Miller summarizes some high points (creation of the Special Counsel for the Russia investigation) and low points (documenting reasons for Comey’s firing) one is left with an unclear picture of who RR really is and what he stands for, especially with the recent events surrounding RR’s comments about Presidential incompetency and the 25th amendment.

There are interesting passages where Miller steps back and looks at the big picture. My favorite is at pages 361-65 where he first builds a case about the volume of Russian placed messages in social networks. The numbers are staggering. A data journalism professor estimated that the number of times content from all Russian pages showed up in people’s feeds could reach into the billions. Miller acknowledges that that there were other critical factors as well including Comey’s handling of the email investigation and Clinton’s candidate failings. But he goes on to conclude “……Russia’s pro-Trump propaganda flooded into the Facebook and Twitter feeds of tens of millions of voters in an election decided by fewer than 80,000 ballots across just three states. To believe that Russian interference was immaterial required a willful ignorance of the power of such pervasive messaging – or an aversion to an uncomfortable truth”.

So, “The Apprentice” does have some moments, but the conclusion is not one of them. The Helsinki meeting between Trump and Putin seems placed to build up to something but again there is nothing new here; it felt skimpy. The conclusion is a bit of a yawner and given far too little space and analysis. Miller lays out the most likely ‘theories of the case’ including Putin must have something on Trump, or there must be still undiscovered financial entanglements, and then finally the most likely - a scenario that has “always been hiding right in front of us” (page 393)……

Not recommended. ( )