Politics

Reporter: Michael Wolff ‘Recklessly Disregarded The Obvious Truth’

REUTERS/Phil Noble

David Krayden Ottawa Bureau Chief
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In a book released Tuesday, reporter Eddie Scarry argues the best-selling expose of the Trump White House “Fire and Fury” “recklessly disregarded the obvious truth.”

Scarry’s response, entitled “Fraud and Fiction: The Real Truth Behind Fire and Fury,” suggests Michael Wolff’s book was not only a collection of innuendo and undocumented stories but a book that shouldn’t have even been taken seriously by the mainstream media — so replete was the work with blatant errors and mistruths.

In an exclusive excerpt for the Washington Examiner, Scarry recounts a phone conversation with Trump in which the president told him that he had never spoken to Wolff and that no one else in the White House inner circle was aware that former presidential aide Steve Bannon was talking to Wolff.

Apparently, Wolff’s generous sharing of Bannon’s remarks is the only thing in the tome that comes close to the truth. “Almost everything else in Wolff’s book, however, was inaccurate and inconsistent with reality or recklessly disregarded the obvious truth,” Scarry writes.

In his excerpt, Scarry highlights the hiring of Trump chief of staff John Kelly as a prime example of how he says Wolff manufactured facts. While Wolff says Trump hired Kelly and fired chief of staff Reince Priebus via a Twitter announcement, Scarry reminds readers that even the The New York Times reported at the time of the White House shakeup that the president had already “offered the job to Mr. Kelly” days before he talked about it in a tweet.

Scarry also pokes ridicule at Wolff’s suggestion that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was haunting the Oval Office, rubbing shoulders with Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, looking for some kind of high-level, clandestine employment.

“A distinguished former British prime minister is ingratiating himself to Kushner because what? He needs a job? It’s laughable,” Scarry writes.

Scarry relates how Wolff was reticent to engage critics of “Fire and Fury.” When questioned by “CBS This Morning” anchor Jeff Glor about the veracity of the book after Trump declared it to be “fake,” Wolff  declared, “Everything in the book is true.” Glor pressed him on the Trump claim.

Wolff responded by saying, “Well, I’m waiting for a nickname [from Trump].”

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