Courtesy of Pam Martens
Michael Wolff Is Interviewed by Savannah Guthrie on the “Today” Show, Friday, January 5, 2018.
How does one make an unreleased book an even bigger bestseller than it already is? Threaten a libel suit and demand that the publisher not release the book – ever. Michael Wolff’s explosive book on the chaos and incompetency of the Trump administration, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, is now the number one bestseller on Amazon.
Yesterday Wolff posted blistering excerpts from the book at the Hollywood Reporter. The President is variously characterized by his own appointees as “a moron,” “dumb as s**t,” “a hopeless idiot,” or someone who has “lost his mind.”
Trump’s lawyer, Charles Harder of Harder Mirell & Abrams LLP, whipped off an 11-page letter to Wolff and Steve Rubin, President of Henry Holt and Company, the book’s publisher. Most of the letter consisted of boilerplate demands to retain documents and emails, an effort to strongly suggest that an actual lawsuit would follow. If, indeed, the lawyer had wanted to head into court, he could have asked a judge for an injunction to prevent publication. Instead, Harder simply demanded the following in a letter:
“Mr. Trump hereby demands that you immediately cease and desist from any further publication, release or dissemination of the Book, the Article, or any excerpts or summaries of either of them, to any person or entity, and that you issue a full and complete retraction and apology to my client as to all statements made about him in the Book and Article that lack competent evidentiary support.”
The publisher’s response was to effectively flip the bird to Trump and his legal team. The publisher announced that it would move up the publication date from January 9 to 9 a.m. this morning.
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