Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Trump lashes out in wake of Comey book
WASHINGTON — Firing back at a critical book by former FBI Director James Comey, President Donald Trump blasted him Friday as an “untruthful slime ball,” saying, “It was my great honor 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 the president as fixated in the early days of his presidency on having the FBI debunk salacious rumors that he said were untrue but that could distress his wife.
The book, A Higher Loyalty, is to be released next week. The Associated Press purchased a copy this week.
Among other details in the book, Comey describes Trump repeatedly asking him to consider investigating an allegation about Trump and Russian prostitutes urinating on a bed in a Moscow hotel, in order to prove that it was a lie. The dossier also alleges close Trump campaign coordination with the Kremlin.
Trump has strongly denied the allegation, and Comey says it appeared that the president wanted it investigated to reassure his wife, Melania Trump.
Trump fired Comey in May, setting off a scramble at the Justice Department that led to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Mueller’s probe has expanded to include whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey, which the president denies.
The Republican National Committee is poised to lead the pushback effort against Comey by launching a website and supplying surrogates with talking points that question his credibility.
That effort began in advance of a media blitz by Comey that began Friday morning as ABC News aired segments of a longer interview scheduled for Sunday night. During the segment, Comey said he didn’t know whether to believe Trump’s denial that he had spent time with prostitutes in Moscow before he became president.
“I honestly thought these words would never come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013. It’s possible, but I don’t know,” Comey told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
In the ABC segment that aired Friday, Stephanopoulos also asked Comey if he had disclosed to Trump at the time the source of funding of the dossier, compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer. Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund the research.
“No, I didn’t even think I used the term Steele dossier,” Comey said.
Of the dossier, Comey said Trump was fixated on the allegations about the prostitutes.
“He said if there’s even a 1 percent chance my wife thinks that’s true, that’s terrible,” Comey recalled. “And I remember thinking, ‘How could your wife think there’s a 1 percent chance you were with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow?’ I’m a flawed human being, but there’s literally zero chance that my wife would think that was true.”
Trump has assailed Comey as a “showboat” and a “liar.” Top White House aides also criticized the fired FBI director Friday. White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders questioned Comey’s credibility in a tweet, and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Comey took “unnecessary, immature pot shots.”
Also in the book, Comey compares Trump to a mafia don and calls Trump’s 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 Clinton email investigation before the 2016 election. He casts Trump as a mobsterlike figure who sought to blur the line between law enforcement and politics and tried to pressure him personally regarding his Russia investigation.
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.
“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.
Comey’s account lands at a particularly sensitive moment for Trump and the White House. Officials there describe the president as enraged over a recent FBI raid of his personal lawyer’s home and office, raising the prospect that he could fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller, or try to shut down the probe on his own.