News of Mr. Gates’s book was reported earlier by Business Insider.
Other books from former Trump aides and associates are in the pipeline, including a memoir from Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, who is serving a three-year prison sentence for campaign finance violations and other crimes that were part of an effort to pay for the silence of two women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump. Mr. Cohen’s book is tentatively titled “Disloyal: The True Story of Michael Cohen, Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump.” Last month, Mr. Cohen, who was on furlough because of the coronavirus, said that a decision to return him to prison was an attempt by the administration to punish him for writing the book, and a judge agreed, ordering him released back to home confinement.
Mr. Gates, who has never spoken publicly about his experience on the Trump campaign apart from his testimony, is likely to face fewer obstacles to sharing his account. He never served in the administration so does not face a government review to ensure he isn’t sharing classified information. In his book, “Wicked Game,” Mr. Gates adds context to the publicized, politicized public account provided in the Mueller investigation, including information that was left out of the report, he said in an interview on Friday.
Readers hoping for another explosive tell-all about the president may be disappointed. Mr. Gates said he isn’t trying to settle scores and that his book takes “a middle of the road approach,” a position that could hamper the book’s commercial prospects in a polarized media environment. At one point, Mr. Gates had a deal with a big publishing house, but it fell through because he declined to make changes that the publisher requested, including removing passages that were critical of the Mueller investigation, he said. Instead, “Wicked Game” is being released by a smaller, independent press that specializes in conservative political books, as well as business, self-help, health, military and Christian titles. Mr. Gates co-wrote it with Mark Dagostino, who has worked on books with Chip and Joanna Gaines and Hulk Hogan.
“It’s not a salacious book,” Mr. Gates said.
He added that his book will shed new light on the inner workings of the Mueller investigation, which he is highly critical of, as the book’s subtitle, “An Insider’s Story on How Trump Won, Mueller Failed, and America Lost” suggests. He describes the hard-nosed tactics prosecutors used and notes that Robert S. Mueller III never interviewed him. Mr. Gates said he isn’t aiming to walk back his guilty plea.
“I accepted the charges, and I knew the consequences that were associated with them,” Mr. Gates said. “At the end of the day, they did find me as the most credible fact witness.”
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/08/books/rick-gates-trump-mueller-wicked-game.html
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