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Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump
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Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress's Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump
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Overview
In a riveting account that flips the script on what readers think they know about the two impeachments of Donald Trump, Rachael Bade and Karoun Demirjian reveal how—and why—congressional oversight failed when it was needed most.
Unchecked weaves a vivid narrative of how House Democrats under the lead of a cautious speaker, Nancy Pelosi, hesitated for months to stand up to Trump—and then pulled punches in their effort to oust him in a misguided effort to protect themselves politically. What they left on the cutting room floor would come back to haunt them, as Republicans seized on their missteps to whip an uneasy GOP rank-and-file into line behind Donald Trump, abandoning their scruples to defend a president who some privately believed had indeed abused his power.
Even after Trump incited a mob to violently attack the Capitol—a day the authors recount in minute-by-minute, stunning detail — Democrats pressured their own investigators to forego a thorough investigation in the name of safeguarding the Biden agenda. And Republicans, fearful of repelling a base they needed for re-election, missed their best moment to turn their backs on a leader they secretly agreed was destructive to democracy.
Sourced from hundreds of interviews with all the key players, the authors of Unchecked pull back the curtain on how both parties pursued political expediency over fact-finding. The end result not only emboldened Trump, giving him room for a political comeback, but also undermined Congress by rendering toothless their most powerful check on a president: the power of impeachment. A dramatic and at times crushing work of investigative reporting, Unchecked is both a gripping page-turner of political intrigue and a detailed case study for historians and political scientists searching for answers about the unravelling of checks and balances that have governed American democracy for centuries.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780063040809 |
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Publisher: | HarperCollins |
Publication date: | 10/03/2023 |
Pages: | 704 |
Sales rank: | 636,129 |
Product dimensions: | 5.20(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.30(d) |
About the Author
Karoun Demirjian is on the national security team at the Washington Post, where she covered intelligence, defense, and foreign policy on Capitol Hill before becoming a Pentagon correspondent. Her award-winning career has spanned three continents, including postings in the Post’s Moscow bureau, a stint in the Middle East working for the Associated Press, and over a decade covering Congress. She was a member of the Washington Post teams that won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize Gold Medal for Public Service and the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and individually won or came in as runner up for the David Lynch Memorial Reporting Award for three years running as a Washington Correspondent for the Las Vegas Sun. She has been a frequent featured expert on television and radio outlets, including as a CNN political analyst.
Table of Contents
Preface ix
Authors' Note xvii
Prologue 1
Part 1
1 "Impeach the motherfucker" 13
2 "All the subpoenas" 20
3 Pressure Points 31
4 Release Valves 48
5 Trump Freed 57
6 The Runaway Chairman 64
7 Whistleblower 72
8 The Messengers 87
9 A Perfect Call 103
10 Impeachment by Another Name 110
11 "The dynamite line" 119
Part 2
12 The Rise of Schiff 135
13 "Keep your powder dry" 145
14 Spin Factory 156
15 "The one-way ratchet" 165
16 Revenge of the Diplomats 175
17 Defending the Indefensible 183
18 "Get over it" 193
19 The Price of Principle 205
20 Get Tougher 217
21 "More like Nixon" 227
22 Planning Ahead 246
23 Missed Opportunities 252
24 Showtime 265
25 "Build a better case" 283
26 The Client 293
27 Nadler's Last Stand 303
28 Cold Feet and a Defection 314
29 Impeached 322
Part 3
30 "Mutually assured destruction" 339
31 The Moderates 349
32 Trump Whisperer 361
33 Pre-Trial Positioning 367
34 Schiff's Lecture Hall 380
35 Bolton's Bombshell 392
36 Mitch's Pressure Cooker 403
37 The Musk Ox Caucus 409
38 Autopilot 424
39 "Politics will break your heart" 431
40 "The impeachment that wasn't" 443
Part 4
41 Shattering the Guardrails 459
42 Impeachment 2.0 492
43 Speak Republican 508
44 Peer Pressure 519
45 Trial Take Two 540
46 The Other Jaime 554
47 Falling Short 580
Epilogue 593
Acknowledgments 605
Notes 613
Index 659