Trump ran White House like a mafia boss: FBI ex-chief Comey

According to excerpts of the book leaked by US media, Trump was also obsessed with the alleged existence of a video in which Russian prostitutes said to be hired by Trump urinated on the bed in a Moscow hotel room. 

In the book to be released officially next Tuesday, Comey, whom Trump fired in May 2017, said the US president lives in “a cocoon of alternative reality” that he tried to pull others around him into, according to a Washington-based daily. 

Sharply reacting to Comey’s allegations, Trump on Friday accused the former FBI director of leaking classified information, saying that he should be prosecuted. 

“James Comey is a proven leaker and liar. Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did, until he was, in fact, fired,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “He leaked classified information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under oath,” he said. 

Meetings with Trump gave Comey “flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the mob,” he wrote. 

“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,” wrote Comey. 

But Comey goes farther to say that Trump, congenitally, has no sense of what is right and wrong. “This president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values,” he writes, according to the media, adding that, “his leadership is transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty.” 

The book, entitled A High er 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. 

The White House has sought to cast doubts about Comey’s reputation: the Republican Party this week put up a website called “Lyin’ Comey” to undermine the book.