5 Things to Know About Scandalous Book Trump Doesn't Want Published
Critics Question The Validity of the Source
While Michael Wolff's work is being widely circulated in advance of its official release, some have questioned the validity of the author's claims.
A column for Slate referred to Wolff as "a notoriously unreliable narrator," then went on to quote a 2004 interview of a former colleague regarding Wolff's reliability.
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"[Wolff's] great gift is the appearance of intimate access. He is adroit at making the reader think that he has spent hours and days with his subject, when in fact he may have spent no time at all," stated the unnamed coworker quoted by Slate.
In one excerpt, Wolff claims Trump didn't know who former Speaker of the House John Boehner was, but Trump had played golf with Boehner and tweeted about him many times.
Paul Farhi of The Washington Post has also called Wolff's work into question, noting that "Wolff has even acknowledged that he can be unreliable."
"As he recounted in 'Burn Rate' — his best-selling book about his time as an early Internet entrepreneur — Wolff kept his bankers at bay by fabricating a story about his father-in-law having open-heart surgery," wrote Farhi.
"'Burn Rate' came under siege from critics who challenged its credibility, including the long verbatim conversations that Wolff recounted despite taking scant notes. Brill's Content, a now-defunct media-review publication, cited a dozen people who disputed quotes attributed to them in the book."
