A website on Wednesday published a cartoon version of the 448-page report from special counsel Robert Mueller, boiling down his lengthy report into allegations that President Trump and his campaign colluded with Russia to alter the 2016 presidential election (even shorter version: He didn’t).
“It feels as if nobody read the Mueller report. That’s a shame, because it’s an important document, depicting possible crimes by a sitting US president,” Insider.com wrote in a piece headlined, “We hired the author of ‘Black Hawk Down’ and an illustrator from ‘Archer’ to adapt the Mueller report so you’ll actually read it.”
But not reading it makes sense. As a narrative, the document is a disaster. And at 448 pages, it’s too long to grind through. For long stretches, it reads less like a story and more like a terms-of-service agreement. The instinct to click “next” is strong.
And yet, buried within the Mueller report, there is a narrative that reads in parts like a thriller, like a comedy, like a tragedy — and, most important — like an indictment. The facts are compelling, all the more so because they come not from President Donald Trump’s critics or “fake news” reports, but from Trump’s own handpicked colleagues and associates. The story just needed to be rearranged in a better form.
So we hired Mark Bowden, a journalist and author known for his brilliant works of narrative nonfiction like “Black Hawk Down,” “Killing Pablo,” and “Hue 1968.” Our assignment for him was simple. Use the interviews and facts laid out in the Mueller report (plus those from reliable, fact-checked sources and published firsthand accounts) to do what he does best: Tell a story recounting Mueller’s report that’s so gripping it will hold your attention (and maybe your congressional representative’s).
The piece is long — realllly long — and massively dumbed down. But one liberal “news” network apparently loved it.
“CNN was very excited about this,” Tucker Carlson said on his Fox News show, playing a clip of the network showing the illustrations and a host declaring “it covers all of the major moments.” Carlson then asked former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino, a guest on his show, if he’d read the comic book version.
“No, because I don’t want to lose neurons and about 20 IQ points by reading this kind of imbecility,” he joked.
“What if they include the Peter Strzok texts, where he tells his girlfriend I don’t think there’s any there there? … Call me, text me, I’d love to know,” Bongino added.
“I suspect it’s not,” Carlson said with a smile.
Watch the whole segment below.
