Thread by @benjaminwittes

.@jacklgoldsmith has written an astonishing book. No, it's not about Trump. It's about Jimmy Hoffa. And it's about Jack's stepfather, the principle suspect in Hoffa's disappearance for many years. I promise you if you start reading it, you will finish it. amazon.com/Hoffas-Shadow-…

@jacklgoldsmith A related story: A few years ago, I was sitting in my office at Brookings and an FBI interviewer showed up. He was doing a background investigation on @jacklgoldsmith for a renewal of Jack's security clearance.

@jacklgoldsmith We went through the usual litany of questions: No, I had never known Jack to abuse alcohol or drugs. No, I didn't know him to be under financial stress or to have a gambling problem. Yes, I thought he was trustworthy, etc.

@jacklgoldsmith Then the interviewer asked me another routine question—one that didn't have a routine answer: "Have you ever known Mr. Goldsmith to use a name other than Jack Goldsmith?"

I told the truth: "Yes."

The agent looked up at my expectantly. "Oh?"

@jacklgoldsmith Well, I explained, he grew up as Jack O'Brien.

The agent got more interested. "Really?"

Yeah, I told him casually. He grew up in a mob family, you know.

@jacklgoldsmith Now the agent was really interested. "Really?"

Yeah, I told him, his step-father was a Teamsters official who was pretty tied in with the mob. Actually, he was the main suspect in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.

@jacklgoldsmith I could see it written all over this agent's face. He thought he had shown up at Brookings for a routine security clearance interview. And now he was about to break the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance.

"Really?"

@jacklgoldsmith I pulled Jack's book, The Terror Presidency, off my shelf. Yeah, I said, and turned to the page where there's a brief account of all of this in that book. "He wrote about it all in here." I handed him the book and he read the page.

The air went out of the balloon.

He left shortly thereafter, thanking me for my cooperation.

Read Jack's new book. It's an incredible story.