Andrew Weissmann, a veteran American prosecutor, has made explosive revelations about Donald Trump’s lies in his new book, arguing that the US president has turned deception into a weapon of power to attack opponents, discredit the media, evade accountability and undermine independent institutions.

One of the New York Times’ best-selling books of 2026, Liar’s Kingdom: How to Stop Trump’s Deceit and Save America, presents a forceful legal and political indictment of what Weissmann describes as the growing scourge of political lies in the United States.

Published by Little, Brown and Company in May 2026, the book examines Trump’s repeated false claims about the 2020 presidential election and the broader consequences of a political system in which deliberate deception can be used to manipulate public opinion without meaningful legal repercussions.

Weissmann is a prominent American legal figure, a veteran federal prosecutor, a legal scholar and a former senior member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election. He also previously headed the fraud section of the US Department of Justice.

In Liar’s Kingdom, Weissmann argues that Trump does not simply lie but has transformed falsehood into an instrument of political power, using it to attack his adversaries, undermine the credibility of the media, escape scrutiny and create an environment in which truth is subordinated to power.

The book warns that the relentless repetition of lies can gradually erase the boundaries between fact and fiction, leaving society unable to agree even on the most basic realities. It offers a disturbing account of the relationship between politics, power and one of the most dangerous weapons available to a politician: a lie so frequently repeated that it no longer surprises anyone.

At the heart of Weissmann’s argument is what he describes as a structural weakness in the US legal system that allows politicians to deceive the public with relative impunity, even as corporate executives can face legal consequences for making false statements to shareholders.

“Unlike other countries, Americans allow politicians and political candidates to lie to them,” Weissmann argues.

He emphasizes that his criticism is not directed at expressions of opinion or unintentional mistakes, but at deliberate lies intended to deceive the public. While American law criminalizes or otherwise penalizes certain forms of dishonesty, including lying to banks, Congress or in corporate disclosures, politicians can make deliberate false claims to voters without facing comparable accountability.

Weissmann maintains that this vulnerability is not an unavoidable feature of democracy but a flaw in the American legal system that can be corrected through political courage, legal innovation and a willingness to learn from countries that have already confronted similar problems.

The consequences of this failure, he argues, have become increasingly apparent under Trump, whose repeated falsehoods have helped erode public confidence in democratic institutions and created an environment in which political deception can serve as a means of consolidating power.

Among the most consequential examples are Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was “a total fraud,” that he had won the popular vote if millions of allegedly illegal votes were excluded, and that Biden could not possibly have received more than 80 million votes.

Such claims helped undermine confidence in the electoral process and fueled the historic assault on American democracy on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory.

Weissmann argues that the damage caused by political deception extends far beyond election disputes, warning that it can facilitate the misuse of law enforcement and military institutions against the public, unlawful deportations and disregard for international rules intended to preserve a civilized and peaceful world.

These concerns also resonate beyond America’s domestic political arena, particularly as Washington faces growing criticism over its use of military force abroad and its claims to uphold an international order based on law and established rules.

The US aggression against Iran and the resulting regional conflict have further intensified scrutiny of Washington’s conduct and the gap between its stated commitment to international law and its resort to military force. From Tehran’s perspective, such actions underscore the dangers of a political system in which official narratives can be used to justify aggression while obscuring its consequences.

Although Weissmann’s book focuses primarily on political deception and the erosion of democratic accountability inside the United States, its broader argument raises questions about how governments use political narratives to justify their actions, evade responsibility and weaken the principles they claim to defend.

Weissmann also warns that the apparent success of political deception encourages other politicians to adopt similar tactics, filling public discourse with falsehoods and further weakening the public’s ability to distinguish between fact and manipulation.

He argues that freedom of speech does not provide unlimited protection for every category of false statement, particularly when deliberate deception causes harm. In his view, the United States could restrict electoral lies through legal measures comparable to those already applied to certain forms of corporate deception, this time to protect democracy itself.

The objective, he argues, should be to ensure that demagogues such as Trump, or any other politicians who deliberately deceive voters, cannot exploit the weaknesses of the legal system to secure or retain public office without accountability.

Weissmann’s central warning is that the United States has become saturated with political lies, with consequences that can threaten fundamental rights and democratic institutions. Americans, he argues, have already witnessed the destructive effects of this deception and experienced its consequences in their daily lives.

More than any other political figure, Weissmann contends, Trump’s extensive and highly publicized use of deception has helped create conditions in which law enforcement and military institutions can be turned against the public, migrants can face unlawful deportation, and international rules intended to safeguard a peaceful world can be disregarded.

Liar’s Kingdom: How to Stop Trump’s Deceit and Save America was published in the United States by Little, Brown and Company in May 2026.