ME AND THE DON
Axed FBI boss compares prez to a Mafia boss in bombshell tell-all
It was like talking to Sammy the Bull
Wanted me to probe ‘hooker vid’
Former FBI Director James Comey rips into President Trump in his new tell-all memoir, accusing his administration of operating like a Mafia family, with mob boss Trump demanding his loyalty.
“The demand was like Sammy the Bull’s Cosa Nostra induction ceremony — with Trump in the role of the family boss asking me if I have what it takes to be a ‘ made man,’ ” Comey writes in “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” referring to the infamous Gambino crime-family hit man-turned-rat Salvatore Gravano.
Across several chapters of the book, a copy of which was obtained by The Post ahead of its April 17 release, Comey details a handful of tense meetings and conversations with Trump, whom he paints as a serial liar whose “presidency threatens much of what is good in this nation.”
The Mafia comparisons begin in their first encounter — an intelligence briefing with the then-president-elect in early 2017 to discuss Russia’s meddling in the election.
Comey, who would be fired by Trump in May, offers some sly first impressions of Trump.
“His face appeared slightly orange, with bright white halfmoons under his eyes where I assumed he placed small tanning goggles,” he writes.
“As he extended his hand, I made a mental note to check its size. It was smaller than mine, but did not seem usually so.”
Showing no interest in the Russian interference, Trump and his team set about plotting a press release emphasizing that there was “no impact on the vote,” even as intelligence officials insisted they hadn’t investigated that and wouldn’t make such a statement.
“I sat there thinking, Holy crap, they are trying to make each of us an ‘amica nostra’ — friend of ours. To draw us in,” writes Comey, who helped prosecute Gambino members in 2002.
“I suddenly had the feeling that, in the blink of an eye, the president-elect was trying to make us all part of the same family.”
As the meeting “teetered toward disaster,” Comey says he placated Trump by saying, “We are not investigating you, sir.”
“That seemed to quiet him,” Comey writes.
They met again a few days after the inauguration at a White House reception for law-enforcement leaders. Comey says he was so desperate to avoid speaking with Trump during the event that he “literally clung” to a blue curtain in the hope that his blue suit would camouflage him.
“What was distressing was what Trump symbolically seemed to be asking leaders of the lawenforcement and national-security agencies to do — to come forward and kiss the great man’s ring. To show their deference and loyalty,” he writes.
Then came the infamous “loy- alty pledge” dinner during which he says Trump told him, “I expect loyalty,” and, “I need loyalty.”
“Ethical leaders never ask for loyalty. Those leading through fear — like a Cosa Nostra boss — require personal loyalty,” he writes.
Their relationship frayed further as Trump asked him to “get out” that the president was not under investigation in the Russia probe and to drop the investigation into ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
Comey recalls that he learned of his May 9 firing by looking at a TV screen while in the middle of speaking at an FBI event.
He says that an “emotional” John Kelly, then the homeland-security secretary, called him to say “he was sick about my firing and that he intended to quit in protest.”
“I urged Kelly not to do that, arguing that the country needed principled people around this president,” Comey writes. “Especially this president.”