New book dishes out dirt on Trump
washington — Former FBI director James Comey says in a new book that President Donald Trump reminded him of a mafia boss who demanded absolute loyalty, saw the entire world against him, and lied about everything.
According to excerpts of the book leaked by US media on Thursday, Trump was also obsessed with the alleged existence of a video in which Russian prostitutes said to be hired by Trump are seen in a Moscow hotel room.
In the book to be released officially next Tuesday, Comey, whom Trump fired in May 2017, says the US president lives in “a cocoon of alternative reality” that he tried to pull others around him into, ac- cording to The Washington Post.
Meetings with Trump gave Comey “flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the Mob,” he writes. “The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organisation above morality and above the truth.” But Comey goes farther to say that Trump, congenitally, has no sense of what is right and wrong. “His leadership is transactional, ego-driven and about personal loyalty,” he writes, according to The New York Times.
The book, entitled A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership, has triggered worries now rippling through the White House and Republican establishment over the damage it might do to the already deeply troubled Trump presidency. —
washington — Firing back at a sharply critical book by former FBI director James Comey, President Donald Trump blasted him on Friday as an ‘untruthful slimeball,’ saying, “It was my great honour to fire James Comey!”
Trump reacted on Twitter early Friday, the day after the emergence of details from Comey’s memoir, which says Trump is ‘untethered to truth,’ and describes him as fixated in the early days of his presidency on having the FBI debunk salacious rumours he said were untrue but that could distress his wife.
The book, A Higher Loyalty, is to be released next week.
In the book, Comey compares Trump to a mafia don and calls his leadership of the country “ego driven and about personal loyalty.”
Comey also reveals new details about his interactions with Trump and his own decision-making in handling the Hillary Clinton email investigation before the 2016 election. He casts Trump as a mobster-like figure who sought to blur the line between law enforcement and politics and tried to pressure him personally regarding his investigation into Russian election interference. The book adheres closely to Comey’s public testimony and written statements about his contacts with Trump and his growing concern about Trump’s integrity. It also includes strikingly personal jabs at Trump that appear sure to irritate the president.
The 6-foot-8 Comey describes Trump as shorter than he expected with a ‘too long’ tie and “bright white half-moons’ under his eyes that he suggests came from tanning goggles. He also says he made a conscious effort to check the president’s hand size, saying it was “smaller than mine but did not seem unusually so.”
“Donald Trump’s presidency threatens much of what is good in this nation,” Comey writes, calling the administration a ‘forest fire’ that can’t be contained by ethical leaders within the government.
On a more-personal level, Comey describes Trump repeatedly asking him to consider investigating an allegation involving Trump and Russian prostitutes urinating on a bed in a Moscow hotel, in order to prove it was a lie. Trump has strongly denied the allegation, and Comey says that it appeared the president wanted it investigated to reassure his wife, Melania Trump.
Trump fired Comey in May 2017, setting off a scramble at the Justice Department that led to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation. Mueller’s probe has expanded to include whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey, which the president denies.
Trump has assailed Comey as a “showboat” and a “liar.” Top White House aides also criticised the fired FBI director on Friday. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders questioned Comey’s credibility in a tweet and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Comey took “unnecessary, immature pot shots.” —
It was my great honour to fire James Comey! He is a weak and untruthful slimeball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI.” Donald Trump, US President
This president is unethical and untethered to truth and institutional values. His leadership is transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty.” James Comey, Former FBI director
The US president lives in ‘a cocoon of alternative reality’ that he tried to pull others around him into.” James Comey