The Apprentice: Trump, Russia, and the Subversion of American Democracy
Written by Greg Miller
Narrated by Greg Miller and Charles Constant
4/5
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About this audiobook
It has been called the political crime of the century: a foreign government, led by a brutal authoritarian leader, secretly interfering with the American presidential election to help elect the candidate of its choice. Now two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning Washington Post national security reporter Greg Miller investigates the truth about the Kremlin’s covert attempt to destroy Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump win the presidency, Trump’s steadfast allegiance to Vladimir Putin, and Robert Mueller’s ensuing investigation of the president and those close to him.
Based on interviews with hundreds of people in Trump’s inner circle, current and former government officials, individuals with close ties to the White House, members of the law enforcement and intelligence communities, foreign officials, and confidential documents, The Apprentice offers striking new information about:
- the hacking of the Democrats by Russian intelligence;
- Russian hijacking of Facebook and Twitter;
- National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s hidden communications with the Russians;
- the attempt by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, to create a secret back channel to Moscow using Russian diplomatic facilities;
- Trump’s disclosure to Russian officials of highly classified information about Israeli intelligence operations;
- Trump’s battles with the CIA and the FBI and fierce clashes within the West Wing;
- Trump’s efforts to enlist the director of national intelligence and the director of the National Security Agency to push back against the FBI’s investigation of his campaign;
- the mysterious Trump Tower meeting;
- the firing of FBI Director James Comey;
- the appointment of Mueller and the investigation that has followed;
- the tumultuous skirmishing within Trump’s legal camp;
- and Trump’s jaw-dropping behavior in Helsinki.
Deeply reported and masterfully told, The Apprentice is essential listening for anyone trying to understand Vladimir Putin’s secret operation, its catastrophic impact, and the nature of betrayal.
Greg Miller
GREG MILLER is a national security reporter for the Washington Post. He was part of the team that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for their groundbreaking stories on Russia’s 2016 election interference and also part of the team awarded the 2014 Pulitzer for coverage of American surveillance programs revealed by Edward Snowden.
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Reviews for The Apprentice
40 ratings13 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was a good case of "never judge a book by its cover". I bypassed this one for a while because the cover just looked too teenage (I'm an adult who just happens to still read a lot of children's/YA fiction). And yet when I did get round to it, I found it completely absorbing. One of those can't-put-it-down books. And I absolutely hadn't guessed the twist at the end!
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This 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.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5First I should say that I did like the characters and cared about them. That being said, I didn't like much else. The plot varied between being unbelievable (coincidences, etc.) to being way too predictable. Also, the formatting of the dialogue was annoying. I guess I've just read so many books like this that this one doesn't stand out in any way for me, other than the fact they're in London rather than in the US.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This 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.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This was one of the more touching YA books I've read. No wonder that it received awards and great reviews.Occasionally, I felt that the style of writing was a bit too distracting, pulling one's attention away from the story to the more stylistic, verbal elements, instead of emphasizing the plot, the characters and the message.The characters in the book are all very memorable. Particularly Rowan with her big heart, tolerance, acceptance and understanding for everything and everyone. She's a much better person than I am and I wished, many times throughout the book, that I could be a bit more like her.Reading this story will leave a mark.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rowan is holding the family together, after the death of her brother Jack. Problem is, it's been several years since Jack's passing. Her mother is beyond help at this point and doesn't even realize Rowan and her sister, Stroma are there half the time. While in the store on day, a boy gives Rowan a photo negative. It's not hers and the small piece of film is the first piece of a mystery that leads everyone to some amazing, life altering truths. What will happen with the boy, Harper who gave Rowan the negative too? As everyone holds on to their pieces of Jack, yet tries to get on with life, while not completely losing him. I loved this book. Rowan was a strong character with a terrific voice. I also loved the fact that it's set in London so I get little pieces of the British slang. I guess I should say, "I love this book to bits!"
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Greg 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.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5In Broken Soup, three freaky things happened to upset fifteen-year-old Rowan’s life. The first thing was that her older brother died from a freak swimming accident in France. As a result, her mother withdraw into herself and her father withdrew from her daily life, moving out of the house, leaving Rowan to care for her mother and her younger sister, Stroma. The second thing was an unknown boy standing behind her at the local coffee shop handing her a photo negative which he said dropped out of her bag. She knew she didn’t drop it.The third occurrence was Bee, a high school senior she never knew or socialized with, coming up to her at lunch and asking about the negative. She was also in line at the coffee shop. This confluence of events and their later unraveling, leads to totally unimagined and unforeseen results. You see, the negative was a photo of her brother, looking extremely happy. The boy, Harper, who gave Rowan the negative, is a New Yorker traveling around Europe (Rowan lives in London) whose current address is an ambulance with all the creature comforts of home. And Bee, well, I’ll let you find out who Bee is.Jenny Valentine has written an intriguing second novel. The main characters are interesting and, in some cases quirky: from Stroma, the precocious six-year-old, to Harper, living in an ambulance, to Carl, Bee’s father who smokes marijuana and is more like a father than Rowan’s own father. There is some intrigue as Rowan seeks more information about the photo and about her brother. There is love on many levels: boys and girls, mothers and fathers, parents and children. And finally, there is the realization that not all burdens should fall on the shoulders of a fifteen-year-old. Broken Soup is a quick but fulfilling read.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/515-year old Rowan's world is still shaken from the death of her outgoing, lovable older brother Jack. But she's not reeling. She doesn't have time for that. Jack's death has left a hole in her family that has plunged her mother into a deep depression, broken up her parents' marriage, and left her to singlehandedly run the household and care for her 6-year old sister, Stroma. Then something weird happens at the grocery store, and her life starts to change. A guy she's never seen before tells her that she dropped something and hands her a photo negative. It's definitely not hers. She doesn't even have a camera. So she throws it away. But the curiosity of a schoolmate, Bee, who witnessed the exchange compels her to fish it out of the trash and develop the photo. It's really not hers. But it's of her dead brother. Where did it come from? And who was that guy? This is one of the most mature and realistic "journey of healing" type books I've read. It wasn't gimmicky at ALL, and this book had the potential to be extremely gimmicky. It wasn't wrapped up too nice and neat at the end. The 15-year old narrator matures visibly throughout the course of the book. I especially liked the way the romance was handled. Rowan didn't bore everyone by spending page after page pining after her crush when she clearly has other things on her mind, and yet it managed to feel natural, not cheap or tacked on. It was a minor part of the book, but added a nice element. I would definitely recommend this book to teens looking for a realistic read.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One of the most exciting voices in young adult fiction, Jenny Valentine succeeds again with this story of a family coping with the death of a child.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5What a crock. This was completely discredited. Hillary is the one who commissioned and paid for the fake Russian dosier. Haven't yiu seen the evidence from the Durham report? Sad that people can be so gullible and easily manipulated. Even sadder that someone would write a lengthy book to support outright lies.
5 people found this helpful
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Ridiculous that this thing should be promoted at the Scribd home page! The "Russia Collusion" false narrative has been proven to be a fraud created by the Clinton campaign, and the criminal prosecutions of those who took part has already begun in federal court. Hillary Clinton has been implicated by a star witness in the federal trial. The Washington Post will eventually be forced to return those ill-gotten Pulitzer Prizes. Only the most absurd Conspiracy Theorists of the democratic party continue to believe in the "Russia Collusion" hoax.
4 people found this helpful
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Everything about this book has been proven wrong since its release.
2 people found this helpful