Epstein Secrets

n you are ahead. The Best and the Brightest described the people who should be in power. A college-age Barack Obama was smitten with the book, as was Rhodes Scholar Bill Clinton. Halberstam’s book defined the look and feel of White House power. His language, resonant and imposing and, often, boffo pompou

ction meant nobody had to deal with the latter issue. As the campaign came to an end, Trump himself was sanguine. He had survived the release of the Billy Bush tape when, in the uproar that followed, the RNC had had the gall to pressure him to quit the race. FBI director James Comey, having bizarrely hung Hi

ved, was a key leaker, if not one of the architects of the Obama administration’s continued effort to connect Trump and his team to Putin and Russia. Rhodes, many in the White House believed, was the deep state. They also believed that every time a leak was credited to “former and current officials,” Rhod

early Trump supporter. (Meadows’s wife had a particular place of regard in the Trump camp for continuing a campaign swing across the Bible Belt over Billy Bush weekend.) Nearly as much as winning the presidency itself, removing Ryan—indeed, humiliating him—was an ultimate expression of what Bannon sought to

, 253 Republican Party, 2, 18, 30, 40-41, 81, 86, 98, 111-12, 117-21, 128, 161-67, 171-72, 201, 290, 303 fracturing of, 179-80, 253, 283, 306, 309-10 Rhodes, Ben, 41, 154, 159, 185, 215 Rice, Susan, 7, 41, 153 Rometty, Ginni, 88 Rose, Charlie, 309 Rosen, Hillary, 78 Rosenstein, Rod, 212, 214, 216-21, 279

and, 30, 76 Bannon and, 1-8, 31-32, 35, 52-53, 59-65, 93, 122, 146-47, 158, 187, 190-91, 232-37, 289, 301, 308-10 Bannon firing and, 173-83, 298-300 Billy Bush tape and, 13-14, 34 business and finances of, 17-18, 36-37, 39, 99, 100, 102, 240, 252-53, 277-79 business councils and, 87-89, 298 cabinet appointme