TRUMPFIRES BACKAT‘ SLIME BALL’COMEY
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump laced into James Comey as an “untruthful slime ball” on Friday as the WhiteHouse and the national Republican Partymounted a withering counterattack against the former FBI director and his stinging newmemoir.
Comey is embarking on a publicity rollout of his book, “A Higher Loyalty,” which offers his version of the highly controversial events surrounding his firing byTrump and the Russia and Hillary Clinton email investigations. In the book, Comey compares Trump to amob boss demanding loyalty, suggests he’s unfit to lead and mocks the president’s appearance.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stood at the White House podium Friday and called Comey “a liar and a leaker” whose loyalty is “only to himself,” adding that Comey will “be forever known as a disgraced partisan hack.”
Reading from prepared notes, she declared, “This is nothing more than a poorly executed PR stunt by Comey to desperately rehabilitate his tattered reputation and enrich his own bank account by peddling a book that belongs on the bargain bin of the fiction section.”
Sanders accused Comey of leaking classified information and breaking his “sacred trust with the president of the United States, the dedicated agents of the FBI and the American people.”
The Republican National Committee helped with the pushback effort against Comey by launching a website and supplying surrogates with talking points that question his credibility.
Comey acknowledged in congressional testimony last year that after he was fired he helped leak his personal, but unclassified, memos of his conversations with Trump to a reporter. In previous testimony, however, he said he never authorized an FBI subordinate to leak information about investigations of Trump or Clinton.
White House aides said Sanders’ unusual barrage at Comey reflected Trump’s anger and that Trump was pleased by her performance.
Trump watched cable news coverage Thursday night, angrily taking in segments devoted to Comey’s book, according to a person familiar with the president’s thinking but not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations.
Trump held his fire on Twitter for a time but unleashed Friday morning. He repeated a favored talking point to one confidant, saying the former FBI directorwas “grandstanding” in order to makemoney off Trump’s name.
In the book, which is to be released Tuesday, Comey compares Trump to a mafia don and calls his leadership of the country “ego driven.” The book adheres closely to Comey’s public testimony and written statements about his contacts with Trump and his own growing concern about Trump’s integrity.