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An Anti-Trump Billionaire Is Sending Every Member Of Congress A Copy Of 'Fire & Fury'

by Chris Tognotti
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Just one day after its release to the general public, journalist Michael Wolff's latest book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House continues to dominate the national conversation, with the president himself clearly more than a little preoccupied by the topic. And now, hundreds more copies of the book are reportedly headed to Capitol Hill ― the staunchly anti-Trump billionaire Tom Steyer bought Fire and Fury for all 535 members of Congress, he told a San Francisco news outlet on Friday.

Steyer, if you've never heard of him, is a billionaire Democratic donor. Over the last year has been running TV ads, starring himself, calling for the impeachment of the president. He also famously ran an enormous ad calling for Trump's impeachment in Times Square (Trump lost New York by 23 points in 2016) and now, he's apparently making sure every member of Congress has a copy of Wolff's hotly discussed new tome.

That's what he said during an interview on Bay Area public news show KQED Newsroom on Friday, telling co-host Scott Shafer that they'll be delivered to the nation's capital by "citizen volunteers." And thus, no member of Congress will have any excuse for not having read it.

Judging on the excerpts, we went out and bought 535 copies, and we're going to get citizen volunteers to deliver them to the office of every congressperson and senator. Because we believe, when we started this impeachment petition on October 20, we felt every subsequent day would bring information that would bolster our argument this was a dangerous, unfit president who needed to be removed from office. And from what I can tell, this book makes that case in very bold letters.

Wolff's book has been a major topic of conversation in recent days, with countless observers pouring through the details and startling scenes contained within, while others have challenged and questioned its credibility. Trump himself has attacked Wolff, calling the book "phony," and on Saturday morning insisted he's actually "like, really smart" and a "stable genius."

Notably, Trump has frequently used the word "phony" to denounce unfavorable coverage on Twitter. Perhaps most significantly, he's referred to independent counsel Robert Mueller's investigation as "phony," as well as the reporting of The New York Times.

Steyer, 60, has become an increasingly visible face in recent months, thanks in large part to his willingness to spend millions of dollars making sure it gets seen, whether in TV ads or on billboards. His effort to rally public support for impeaching the president have been met with consternation by some elected Democrats, in particular House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who worry that it will ultimately fire up Republicans to vote in the 2018 midterm elections.

Steyer addressed these concerns in the same interview, saying that his first and foremost priority was telling the truth, as he sees it, about Trump's fitness for office.

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"We're telling the truth," Steyer told Shafer. "We believe he is unfit, we believe all those Democrats would agree with us that he's unfit. We think that he's dangerous to the American people, we believe those Democrats would agree with that. We believe that this is the constitutional remedy for a dangerous, unfit president."

It remains to be seen whether Steyer's cause will generate any significant momentum, although for the time being, any real thought of impeachment is basically a pipe dream. At present, the Republicans control the House of Representatives by a wide margin, with 239 seats compared to just 193 for the Democrats. A majority vote in the House is required to impeach a president, and then the process of the Senate removing them from office is even more prohibitively difficult, requiring a two-thirds majority vote.