“Behind every great fortune is a great crime.” So Michael Wolff told the New York Times, paraphrasing Balzac in 2021, three years into becoming an overnight sensation after publishing his explosive tell-all documenting the dysfunctional world of Donald Trump’s White House.
Exposing “great crimes” has indeed become the MO of Wolff’s firebrand journalism, particularly in the later years of his career. It’s hard to overstate the impact of Fire and Fury, the book which prompted the then-president to threaten legal action, led to his estrangement from former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, and contained the uproarious claim that “100% of the people around [Trump]” believed he was unfit for office.
