Michael Cohen’s book would seem at first blush to be a ‘mea culpa,’ in which he confesses all the many terrible things he did for Trump as the sociopathic real estate mogul took over first his life and then his personality. Cohen repeatedly cautions the reader that he knew then and he knows now that he was not blameless as he harangued Trump’s enemies into submission, helped ruin reputations and businesses, and generally ground people I got the ground so that DJT got his way. He was the “fixer” before he was personal attorney to the President, but his ambition for power knew no limits. “The real real truth”—Cohen is big on “real real”—“about why I wanted Trump to be president was because I wanted the power that he would bring to me. I wanted to be able to crush my enemies and rule the world” (105). The book relates his many transgressions on the way to the presidency—my personal favorite is the Benjamin Moore story that involves Cohen extorting 10,000 gallons of paint from the manufacturer for a job that Trump never paid for. But when he finally gets there, he finds their relationship tainted by the very act that facilitated Trump’s ascension to the throne: Cohen’s payment to Stormy Daniels to keep her mouth shut. His hero was never adequately appreciative and he began distancing himself from his fixer as soon as the payment was made. The FBI ultimately seized Cohen’s paper and computers, and he was indicted and convicted for campaign fraud, tax evasion, and misrepresentation on a bank form. Although Cohen would have the reader believe he has reached some new level of self-insight and candor with himself and his family, who is ultimately to blame? The prosecutor of the Southern District of New York. “No one reading this book should think for a second that they’re immune to [sic] these gangster tactics that have been so widely publicized, but continue unabated and unapologetically,” he writes (353). I did not see that coming, but I should have. And so should he.