Unabridged Audiobook
It wasn't by mistake that the book came out in September of 2020. While the original work was promising. (TY Anne K. Said it better than I could.) It was like Chris Whipple had a manuscript that was dug out of the moth-balls. I can imagine Podesta calling Whipple up and saying, "Remember that book you were working on? Yeah, we need that finished and out by September." Why do I say this? Because all through the book it may very well have some historical significance (again, TY Anne K.) but it's the "never-Trump" stuff put in as a pre-election spike that turned me against the book. Some huge contradictions with actual history we now know in November, 2021. Like the whole PP Tape hoax and the DNC hack. The book plays it up like the answers are already known, yet they are so obviously lies, that it ruins the credibility of the whole book. Also, Barack gave a speech prior to the 2016 election where he said, "No threat of cheating." and the book should have mentioned that, to round out any discussion on how Barack "tried to warn everyone about cheating". It all comes off as a big lie. The fact that these DCI's dog-pile on the now-discredited stories, puts into doubt another glaring omission, Uranium One. IF they were willing to lie about Comey trying to shake Trump down, then their signatures helping Putin capture 20% of the US Uranium supply has that same STANK all over it. The audio is worse yet, because the dubs are tacked on in obvious places to correct something they might have gotten sued over. The glaring omissions are even louder than what is written. AND GINA! Holy cow! 180 on her! It's like one author wrote the truth about her from Rodriguez and then a second author came into the picture and threw mud on her, just because she faithfully served her President. On top of everything else, the editor in charge of puffing Obama and infusing outrage in key places, just puts a whole cloak of doubt about the authenticity. I hope Whipple got paid a lot of money, because he'll never see another dime from me. I don't trust him. One more thing. If you read many non-fiction books on the history of the agency, cross reference those against the details in this book. You will find that this author has a huge bias towards a specific party and specific directors. Nothing in this book should be trusted, because the scenes from History that I witnessed myself, paint a very different picture. The title of this book should be, "Democrats are Pure as the Driven Snow: But them darn Republicans! - Oh, yeah, and I talk about stuff the former DCI's lied to me about." This book does do one thing really well. Whatever it claims about Trump, convinced me of the EXACT opposite. Chris... If you're reading this: "Lets Go Brandon"
This could have been an excellent book and an important part of history, detailing the legacy of those who've led the CIA. But it wasn't. Instead, the author starts the book--and ends it--on tirades about Trump. Why? These grand diversions were so out of place that they overshadowed a stronger, middle of the book. That middle part is well worth reading and quite interesting, if you could only skip the book beginning and a solid chunk toward the end. The idolatry of recent director Brennan also detracted from later chapters, seeming to shade any semblance of objectivity. In fact, there were many instances in later chapters of the truth bent to match the author's views. Had he stuck to undisputed facts--and to CIA directors--the book might have stood the test of time, but it won't. I was close friends with an interim director of the CIA, who was oddly enough not covered; other interim directors were, and the omission made me wonder just how deep the author's sources went. Maybe not deep enough.
This author is very informative early on in the book but he is definitely biased against Trump on almost every aspect of his presidency. He also states in the book that Benghazi attack was not the fault of the Obama administration including Hilary Clinton and also tries to state the Steel Dossier was a real Russian document. These two glaring lie’s which have no support show this book is a political hack job especially due to the timing of the release of the book in a presidential election year.
~~tag-text~~