Source: Amazon
Special counsel Robert Mueller is better known for his prosecutions than his prose.
But now the former FBI Director can add "New York Times Bestselling Author" to his resume, alongside his Purple Heart and other military distinctions.
The government report, available for free on the Department of Justice's website as a PDF, was presented in book form by The Washington Post and Scribner and released as a paperback and e-book after it was released last month.
And it's flying off the shelves.
"The Mueller Report" sold more than 40,000 copies last week according to an industry tracker, the Associated Press reported.
It topped the Times' best seller list in two categories, including paperback nonfiction.
And, boosted by the high-profile testimony of Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday, the special counsel's 736-page work also notched the No. 1 spot in Amazon's book category.
The highly-anticipated report is not the first government work to become a best-seller.
The 9/11 Commission Report, published by W.W. Norton & Company in 2004, had "booksellers scrambling to fulfill orders," the American Booksellers Association wrote at the time. The book was later that year selected as a National Book Award finalist in nonfiction.
A week after "The Starr Report" was published in 1998, Simon & Schuster told The New York Times that sales were "astonishing. "
But despite the Mueller report's speedy sales, it received mixed reviews. In Slate, Laura Miller described the work as "Olympian and meticulous." Carlos Lozada, the Washington Post's book critic, hailed it as the "best book by far on the workings of the Trump presidency."
Meanwhile, Barr, in his first public testimony on the matter, said Wednesday that parts of the document were confusing. President Donald Trump, for his part, said the work was written "by Trump Haters and Angry Democrats, who had unlimited funds and human resources."
But he praised the work's conclusion, which he said cleared him of collusion and obstruction, though Mueller did not directly address the first point and declined to make a determination on the latter.
"Amazing!" Trump wrote.
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