Lanny J. Davis – författare

On a November afternoon in 1996, Lanny Davis got a phone call that would change his life. It was from a top aide at the White House, asking him if he was interested in joining the president''s senior staff. Within a few short weeks he had signed on as special counsel to the president. Fourteen months later, his tour of duty almost over, he got another phone call, this time from a Washington Post reporter who asked, "Have you ever heard the name Monica Lewinsky?" In the time between those two phone calls, Davis received an extraordinary political education. As President Bill Clinton''s chief spokesman for handling "scandal matters" he had the unenviable job of briefing reporters and answering their pointed questions on the most embarrassing allegations against the president and his aides, from charges of renting out the Lincoln Bedroom, to stories of selling plots in Arlington Cemetery, from irregular campaign fundraising to sexual improprieties. He was the White House''s first line of defense against the press corps and the reporters'' first point of entry to an increasingly reticent administration. His delicate task was to remain credible to both sides while surviving the inevitable crossfire. Upon entering the White House, Davis discovered that he was never going to be able to turn bad news into good news, but he could place the bad news in its proper context and work with reporters to present a fuller picture. While some in the White House grew increasingly leery of helping a press corps that they regarded as hostile, Davis moved in the opposite direction, pitching unfavorable stories to reporters and helping them garner the facts to write those stories accurately. Most surprisingly of all, he realized that to do his job properly, he sometimes had to turn himself into a reporter within the White House, interviewing his colleagues and ferreting out information. Along the way, he learned the true lessons of why politicians, lawyers, and reporters so often act at cross-purposes and gained some remarkable and counterintuitive insights into why this need not be the case. Searching out the facts wherever he could find them, even if he had to proceed covertly, Davis discovered that he could simultaneously help the reporters do their jobs and not put the president in legal or political jeopardy. With refreshing candor, Davis admits his own mistakes and reveals those instances where he dug a deeper hole for himself by denying the obvious and obfuscating the truth. And in a powerful reassessment of the scandal that led to the president''s impeachment, Davis suggests that if the White House had been more receptive to these same hard-won lessons, the Monica Lewinsky story might not have come so close to bringing down an otherwise popular president. For as Davis learned above all, you can always make a bad story better by telling it early, telling it all, and telling it yourself.

On a November afternoon in 1996, Lanny Davis got a phone call that would change his life. It was from a top aide at the White House, asking him if he was interested in joining the president's senior staff. Within a few short weeks he had signed on as special counsel to the president. Fourteen months later, his tour of duty almost over, he got another phone call, this time from a Washington Post reporter who asked, "Have you ever heard the name Monica Lewinsky?" In the time between those two phone calls, Davis received an extraordinary political education. As President Bill Clinton's chief spokesman for handling "scandal matters" he had the unenviable job of briefing reporters and answering their pointed questions on the most embarrassing allegations against the president and his aides, from charges of renting out the Lincoln Bedroom, to stories of selling plots in Arlington Cemetery, from irregular campaign fundraising to sexual improprieties. He was the White House's first line of defense against the press corps and the reporters' first point of entry to an increasingly reticent administration. His delicate task was to remain credible to both sides while surviving the inevitable crossfire. Upon entering the White House, Davis discovered that he was never going to be able to turn bad news into good news, but he could place the bad news in its proper context and work with reporters to present a fuller picture. While some in the White House grew increasingly leery of helping a press corps that they regarded as hostile, Davis moved in the opposite direction, pitching unfavorable stories to reporters and helping them garner the facts to write those stories accurately. Most surprisingly of all, he realized that to do his job properly, he sometimes had to turn himself into a reporter within the White House, interviewing his colleagues and ferreting out information. Along the way, he learned the true lessons of why politicians, lawyers, and reporters so often act at cross-purposes and gained some remarkable and counterintuitive insights into why this need not be the case. Searching out the facts wherever he could find them, even if he had to proceed covertly, Davis discovered that he could simultaneously help the reporters do their jobs and not put the president in legal or political jeopardy. With refreshing candor, Davis admits his own mistakes and reveals those instances where he dug a deeper hole for himself by denying the obvious and obfuscating the truth. And in a powerful reassessment of the scandal that led to the president's impeachment, Davis suggests that if the White House had been more receptive to these same hard-won lessons, the Monica Lewinsky story might not have come so close to bringing down an otherwise popular president. For as Davis learned above all, you can always make a bad story better by telling it early, telling it all, and telling it yourself.

TELL IT ALL, TELL IT EARLY, TELL IT YOURSELF Nobody ever calls Lanny Davis to give him good news. As a legal crisis manager, he’s the man public figures such as Bill Clinton, Martha Stewart, U.S. representative Charlie Rangel, and companies such as Whole Foods, among many others, rely on to pull them through public scandal with their reputations intact. Winning your case in a courtroom instead of the media is no longer a viable option. These days, every scandal is tried in the court of public opinion. Refusing to dignify allegations with an answer is grounds for flagellation by the press. Political insider Davis has spent years helping politicians, sports figures, business executives, and corporations through the biggest reputation crises of our times, and each case has aided him in the creation of five invaluable rules that absolutely anyone can use to protect himself from damaging hearsay— online and off. In this fascinating and practical resource, Davis tells the real stories behind his famous clients’ very public scandals as he explains what he and his team did right, what they did wrong, and how they learned from their mistakes and successes. As impossible as it is to believe, many public relations experts still rely on the faulty Nixon model—deny, deny, deny. This tactic was detrimental not only to Nixon’s presidency but, for example, to Exxon and BP (not Davis’s clients) following major oil spills. Instead, Davis believes, it is important to tell the full story yourself, even if it means sharing unflattering details before they leak on their own. By getting ahead of the story, you have more control over how the information is reported and perceived in the media. Damaging falsehoods can go viral in an instant, but the nation’s premier political spin doctor will teach you how to fight back.

The first comprehensive account that proves that James Comey threw the 2016 election to Donald Trump. “Compelling criticism…lapsed Trump supporters might well open their minds to this attorney’s scholarly, entirely convincing proof of the damage done” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).During the week of October 24, 2016, Hillary Clinton was decisively ahead of Donald Trump in most polls. Then FBI Director James Comey sent his infamous letter to Congress on October 28, saying the bureau was investigating additional emails, potentially relevant to the Hillary Clinton email case. In The Unmaking of the President 2016, attorney Lanny J. Davis shows how Comey’s misguided announcement—just eleven days before the election—swung a significant number of voters away from Clinton, winning Trump an Electoral College victory—and the presidency. Drawing on sources in the intelligence community and Justice Department, Davis challenges Comey's legal rationale for opening a criminal investigation of Clinton's email practices, questions whether Comey received sufficient Justice Department oversight, and cites the odd clairvoyance of Trump ally Rudolph Giuliani, who publicly predicted an "October surprise." Davis proves state by state, using authoritative polling data, how voter support for Clinton dropped after the Comey letter was made public, especially in key battleground states. Despite so many other issues in the election—Trump’s behavior, the Russian hacking, Clinton's campaign missteps—after the October 28 Comey letter, everything changed. Now Davis proves with raw, indisputable data how Comey’s October letter cost Hillary Clinton the presidency and America turned the course of history in the blink of an eye.

The first comprehensive account that proves that James Comey threw the 2016 election to Donald Trump. “Compelling criticism…lapsed Trump supporters might well open their minds to this attorney’s scholarly, entirely convincing proof of the damage done” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).During the week of October 24, 2016, Hillary Clinton was decisively ahead of Donald Trump in most polls. Then FBI Director James Comey sent his infamous letter to Congress on October 28, saying the bureau was investigating additional emails, potentially relevant to the Hillary Clinton email case. In The Unmaking of the President 2016, attorney Lanny J. Davis shows how Comey’s misguided announcement—just eleven days before the election—swung a significant number of voters away from Clinton, winning Trump an Electoral College victory—and the presidency. Drawing on sources in the intelligence community and Justice Department, Davis challenges Comey''s legal rationale for opening a criminal investigation of Clinton''s email practices, questions whether Comey received sufficient Justice Department oversight, and cites the odd clairvoyance of Trump ally Rudolph Giuliani, who publicly predicted an "October surprise." Davis proves state by state, using authoritative polling data, how voter support for Clinton dropped after the Comey letter was made public, especially in key battleground states. Despite so many other issues in the election—Trump’s behavior, the Russian hacking, Clinton''s campaign missteps—after the October 28 Comey letter, everything changed. Now Davis proves with raw, indisputable data how Comey’s October letter cost Hillary Clinton the presidency and America turned the course of history in the blink of an eye.