Henry Holt and Company Moves Up Publication Date of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House”!

Dear Commons Community,

Henry Holt and Co., the publisher of “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House”, announced yesterday that it would make the book available for sale starting at 9 a.m. today rather than wait for its original release date on Tuesday. “We see ‘Fire and Fury’ as an extraordinary contribution to our national discourse, and are proceeding with the publication of the book,” the company said in a statement.  Moving up the publication date, Holt and Company was responding to President Trump’s threat to sue the publisher for libel.  As reported by the New York Times:

The book infuriated Mr. Trump in part by quoting Steve Bannon making derogatory comments about the president’s children. Mr. Bannon was quoted as saying that Donald Trump Jr. had been “treasonous” and “unpatriotic” for meeting with Russians during the 2016 campaign and that Ivanka Trump was “dumb as a brick.” Mr. Trump fired back on Wednesday, saying that Mr. Bannon had “lost his mind” and had “nothing to do with me or my presidency.”

President Trump threatened legal fire and fury on Thursday in an effort to block the new book portraying him as a volatile and ill-equipped chief executive, but the publisher defied his demand to halt its release and instead moved up its publication to Friday because of soaring interest.

Angry at the publisher’s refusal to back down, Mr. Trump took aim late Thursday night at the book’s author, Michael Wolff, and one of his primary sources, Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, whose derisive comments about the president and his family stirred deep resentment in the Oval Office.

“I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter shortly before 11 p.m. “I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don’t exist. Look at this guy’s past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve!”

The president’s blast at Mr. Wolff came at the end of a day in which Mr. Trump’s effort to stop publication failed. In an 11-page letter sent in the morning, a lawyer for the president said the book,  as excerpted in a magazine article, includes false statements about Mr. Trump that “give rise to claims for libel” that could result in “substantial monetary damages and punitive damages.”

“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 letter said.”

I just ordered my copy at amazon.com.

Tony

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