Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency

By: Andrew C. McCarthy

Narrated by: Tom Parks

Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins

Publisher's Summary

The real collusion in the 2016 election was not between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. It was between the Clinton campaign and the Obama administration.

The media-Democrat “collusion narrative”, which paints Donald Trump as cat’s paw of Russia, is a studiously crafted illusion.

Despite Clinton’s commanding lead in the polls, hyper-partisan intelligence officials decided they needed an “insurance policy” against a Trump presidency. Thus was born the collusion narrative, built on an anonymously sourced “dossier”, secretly underwritten by the Clinton campaign and compiled by a former British spy. Though acknowledged to be “salacious and unverified” at the FBI’s highest level, the dossier was used to build a counterintelligence investigation against Trump’s campaign.

Miraculously, Trump won anyway. But his political opponents refused to accept the voters’ decision. Their collusion narrative was now peddled relentlessly by political operatives, intelligence agents, Justice Department officials, and media ideologues - the vanguard of the “Trump Resistance”. Through secret surveillance, high-level intelligence leaking, and tireless news coverage, the public was led to believe that Trump conspired with Russia to steal the election.

Not one to sit passively through an onslaught, President Trump fought back in his tumultuous way. Matters came to a head when he fired his FBI director, who had given explosive House testimony suggesting the president was a criminal suspect, despite privately assuring Trump otherwise. The resulting firestorm of partisan protest cowed the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel, whose seemingly limitless investigation bedeviled the administration for two years.

Yet as months passed, concrete evidence of collusion failed to materialize. Was the collusion narrative an elaborate fraud? And if so, choreographed by whom? Against media-Democrat caterwauling, a doughty group of lawmakers forced a shift in the spotlight from Trump to his investigators and accusers. This has exposed the depth of politicization within American law-enforcement and intelligence agencies. It is now clear that the institutions on which our nation depends for objective policing and clear-eyed analysis injected themselves scandalously into the divisive politics of the 2016 election.

They failed to forge a new Clinton administration. Will they succeed in bringing down President Trump?

©2019 Andrew C. McCarthy (P)2019 Black Hills Audiobooks

Comey did more damage to USA than Russia!

Mr. McCarthy gives far too much deference to the FBI leadership. Comey's is the enemy.

Very good but could have been even better

I’ll list a few points. (Audible edition)

1. Andy did a great job explaining the relationships of Mifsud, Downer, Steele, Simpson, the Ohrs and how the collusion logistically went down. I keep up with news but the book really cleared up my confusion in many areas.

2. It’s sometimes difficult to follow because he gets into the legal weeds.

3. No one should accuse Andy of going easy on the President because he doesn’t. For the sake of demonstrating his objectivity he over achieved that goal. Too many times his emotion belies a strong dislike of the man. It gets in the way of his objectivity.

4. The material in this book is not a one off or propaganda. It is well documented by nearly three years of FOIA documents and research by many people who, like Andy, may not be fans of Donald Trump but are big fans of the truth.

Amazing detail and organization

A very detailed description of how the Obama administration handicapped the incoming Trump administration. One thing I especially liked is how the author paused the narrative to explain the significance or divergence from standard procedure. I wish it was twice as long. I didn’t want it to end.

Lots of background about everybody and everything

What’s good about Ball of Collusion is that it was written by a federal prosecutor with decades of experience (he prosecuted the Blind Sheikh) who intimately knows the ins and outs of everything involved in the Russiagate narrative.

He takes time to give the background of post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine and the history of US politicians working for various companies and the oligarchs who own them.

He gives the history of Glenn Simpson and FusionGPS and what they had been doing in the years before Hillary through Perkins-Coie hired them to feed Steele information and lots of money to create the golden showers dossier.

He describes what all the principals in the current matter, such as Robert Mueller, Andrew Weismann, Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein, John Brennan, James Comey, Stephen Halper, Joseph Mifsud, James Clapper, Bruce and Nelly Ohr, Susan Rice, Sally Yates, had been up to in the preceding years and who knew whom and to what extent.

He gives extensive background of the history, extent, and use of the information gathering activity of the FBI, NSA, and CIA, how it’s used in foreign intelligence, and what are and are not legal uses of this information.

He gives the background of the FISA courts, and how and why they operate.

From this background he moves into the conception and implementation of the surveillance of Trump and the Trump campaign, first as an effort to prevent his election, and then, after he did the seemingly impossible and was elected, the mad scramble:

to conceal what they had been doing,

to repurpose it from “keep Trump from coming to power” to “keep Trump from exercising his power” to “try to drive Trump from power,”

to take what they started with, the Steele dossier, and use it as an excuse to run a lengthy investigation in the hopes that they could find something, anything that would support the narrative,

to write up the completely unprecedented and legally baseless part two of the Mueller Report to provide Democrats in the House with a pretext to launch impeachment over obstruction of justice, which they also failed to find.

Once you get to the last quarter of the book you have enough background in knowing who knew whom and how everything is supposed to work to understand just how monstrously criminal their entire enterprise was and continues to be.

Amazing book - Trump Russia Collusion Debunked!

I don't write many reviews but I had to on this particular title. If there is one book that does an amazing job at digging into the whole Trump Russian Collusion hoax this book is it. Not only does it peal back the layers of the hoax but it sheds light on the Obama presidency and just how politically motivated they were. What adds to this story is that Andrew McCarthy was a former intelligence officer with the FBI and knows the protocols that the FBI should be following. There are many other books out there on this subject but this is by far the best for its timeliness and for its in depth knowledge of the workings of the FBI.

most unbaised book on topic so far

purchased about five titles on collision/delusion so far. this is the most unbiased to date.

Exhaustive.... But...

This is a book to be studied. The author's done an intensive and extensive application of scholarship through the lens of his professional training and experience. Few are better positioned and equipped to do Mr. McCarthy's investigation into the process of President Trump's Intelligence and Justice investigation... No there's not a redundancy in that last sentence, McCarthy here is investigating the investigators.

Since he must submerse himself... and us... into a sea of details and number of people in this drama which will (in McCarthy's own allusion) make a Russian novelist blush. They are so vast and interacting that a certain amount of this thesis needs serious, well, memorization on the part of the reader. In a work of this length, I lack that time and motivation, hence I've taken at least some of the author's conclusion on faith.

Still, I'm left with a respect for his verdict that the Trump/Russian accusations along with accusations of interference are indeed scandalous. That is what this books about and it seems as if that case is solid and may indeed come out as the present Justice investigations proceed.

Fine so far... but, the abrupt ending of this book disconcerted me. McCarthy brought me to a point where I wanted some supposition about the directions that the Attorney General will now take... a suggested blueprint for action upon the theory of the case which Ball of Collusion will/may/should pursue. It's absence, especially after such a time I invested in studying this book is frustrating.

Perhaps I own that problem? Hmmmm.....

MUCH BETTER than I anticipated!

Author Andrew McCarthy writes for some conservative websites and appears on Fox News so one may expect a biased presentation. Instead, BALL OF COLLUSION is a totally unbiased look at the travails of President Trump and his opponents. The book is also filled with detailed facts that will be enlightening to any listener. Narrator Tom Parks is superb. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

Great book! Fair and measured.

Worth a listen if you want to know what really happened during and after the election of Donald Trump.

Shedding light.

In our currently heated political environment listening to attorneys break down events and corresponding laws is insightful.

The other side of the Trump story.

After so many books demonising Trump it is useful to hear the other side of the story. This book tells a compelling story of how the Obama administration politicised state assets to benefit the Democratic Party. Politics is a brutal contact sport!