Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump fires back amid Comey book release
President blasts former FBI director, saying: “It was my great honor to fire James Comey!”
WASHINGTON — Firing back at a sharply 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 him as fixated in the early days of his presidency on having the FBI debunk salacious rumors 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.
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 mobsterlike 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 criticized 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.”
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. 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.
Trump initially said he fired Comey because of his handling of the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s email practices.
But, shortly after the firing, Trump told NBC News, “When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story.’ ”