Andrew McCarthy’s Ball of Collusion: The Plot To Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency is my book of 2019. Writing the book, McCarthy drew on his professional experience and expertise in prosecuting national security cases. As I asserted in my year-end roundup, only McCarthy could have written the book, and he provides just about everything the intelligent reader needs to make up his own mind about the issues.

It is astounding that the Democrats’ media adjunct has simply ignored the book. They can’t deal with it. My review of the book on its August 13 publication date — “All the president’s men, Obama style” — constituted an appreciation. I stand by my appreciation!

Seeing McCarthy’s presentation on the book at the Center of the American Experiment event in Minneapolis on November 25 was certainly one of my personal highlights of the year. In the book and in his presentations on it, as in the excellent August 13 Silicon Valley Liberty Forum presentation below, Andy reserves judgment on the criminal responsibility of the plot’s protagonists.

In his November 25 CAE presentation, however, Andy emphasized that his mother vehemently disagrees with him. According to his mom, the malefactors at the top have to be punished. All of us present that night murmured our agreement with Andy’s mom.

I think there is at least a slight internal tension in the book. Despite his reservation of judgment based on the possibility of actions taken in good faith or without the requisite criminal intent, McCarthy states in the concluding paragraph of the book: “This is the Ball of Collusion: counterintelligence as a pretext for a criminal investigation in search of a crime; criminal investigation as a pretext for impeachment without an impeachable offense; an impeachment inquiry as a pretext for rendering Donald Trump un-reelectable; and all of it designed as a straitjacket around his presidency.”

This description of “pretexts” cannot fairly be understood as anything other than a criminal conspiracy. As I say, however, regardless of what opinion he may hold, McCarthy provides the intelligent reader with the information necessary to make up his own mind.

My friend Mr. McCarthy makes his comments about “pretext” in the opening of his presentation in the video below. In this presentation on the day of the book’s publication this past August, the internal tension that I see in the book is present in a different form. Here Andy asks the audience to wait for the facts to come in. I think the book and everything we have learned since demonstrate that Andy’s mom was right all along.