Former
FBI director
James Comey's highly anticipated book drops next week and we're getting the first taste of what's in it, thanks to media outlets who got early copies.
Get ready to brush up on your mob terminology as we take a peek into A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership.
1. I'm the boss, see?Comey knows about the mob. As a prosecutor, he helped dismantle the Gambino crime family. So when Comey compares Don to a Don, he knows of which he speaks.
“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 organization above morality and above the truth,” is how Comey describes the
Trump administration, according to The New York Times.
2. Sessions 'overwhelmed and overmatched'After that famous Oval Office session in February 2017 when Trump asked Comey to stay back so he could privately urge him to drop the investigation of ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn, Comey writes he confronted Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“You can’t be kicked out of the room so he can talk to me alone,” Comey told Sessions, according to an excerpt in The Washington Post. “You have to be between me and the president.”
But the AG, whom Comey describes as “both overwhelmed and overmatched by the job,” just "cast his eyes down at the table, and they darted quickly back and forth, side to side. He said nothing. I read in his posture and face a message that he would not be able to help me.”
3. The tape. No, not the 'Access Hollywood' one.Trump was pretty upset about the dossier compiled by former spy Christopher Steele and “strongly denied the allegations" about prostitutes urinating in front of him during a 2013 Moscow trip.
Comey writes that the president was asking "rhetorically, I assumed — whether he seemed like a guy who needed the service of prostitutes. He then began discussing cases where women had accused him of sexual assault, a subject I had not raised. He mentioned a number of women, and seemed to have memorized their allegations,” according to The Washington Post.
Trump tried to convince Comey the Moscow prostitute portion of the dossier was not true. “I’m a germaphobe,” Trump told him, according to Comey’s account. “There’s no way I would let people pee on each other around me. No way.”
4. Not. A. Democrat. According to the Post, Comey, a Republican through his career, slams GOP leaders of Congress: “It is also wrong to stand idly by, or worse, to stay silent when you know better, while a president brazenly seeks to undermine public confidence in law enforcement institutions that were established to keep our leaders in check.” (Mic drop.)
5. But her emails.Comey reveals a private assurance he received from President Obama about his handling of Hillary Clinton's emails, the Post reported. Comey writes that Obama told him in a White House meeting after the election, “I picked you to be FBI director because of your integrity and your ability. I want you to know that nothing — nothing — has happened in the last year to change my view.”
Comey, close to tears, told Obama, “Boy, were those words I needed to hear ... I’m just trying to do the right thing.”
“I know,” Obama said. “I know.”
6. Give him a hand.James Comey, at 6'8", is one of the few people who can view the president from on high. The Post reported that the first time Comey met Trump he thought the 6’3” president-elect looked shorter than he did on television. “His face appeared slightly orange,” Comey writes, “with bright white half-moons under his eyes where I assumed he placed small tanning goggles, and impressively coifed, bright blond hair, which upon close inspection looked to be all his.
“As he extended his hand,” Comey adds, “I made a mental note to check its size. It was smaller than mine, but did not seem unusually so.”