Donald Trump Is Freaking Out About James Comey's Book & It's A Lot Even For Him
Things haven't been easy in the White House as of late, and the president is definitely feeling the tension — and has gone on the attack. After excerpts from former FBI Director James Comey's memoir were released ahead of its April 17 publication date, the president decided to take to Twitter to do some "damage control" over the things that Comey said about him in his tell-all memoir. And Donald Trump's response to James Comey's book is pretty excessive — even for him.
Trump went on a Twitter rampage on April 15 ahead of both the release date of Comey's memoir, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, which is set to hit bookstands on April 17. But before the book was released, excerpts from it were shared with the media for promotional purposes. And boy did those excerpts generate a massive buzz. The excerpts, which described Trump as dishonest and unethical were damning enough to get a rise out of the president. In return, Trump ripped into Comey's integrity and character — and even insinuated Comey's actions could lead to jail time. In one of several tweets, Trump said,
Slippery James Comey, a man who always ends up badly and out of whack (he is not smart!), will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history, by far!
He prefaced it with,
The big questions in Comey’s badly reviewed book aren’t answered like, how come he gave up Classified Information (jail), why did he lie to Congress (jail), why did the DNC refuse to give Server to the FBI (why didn’t they TAKE it), why the phony memos, McCabe’s $700,000 & more?
Though Twitter attacks on Trump's enemies, either real or imagined, aren't exactly rare, if you read how Comey's described this administration, it's not hard to believe that the president would go off. Comey really ripped into Trump in the book, accusing him of demanding that Comey pledge loyalty to him and not of honoring the office of the President of the United States — or any government office for that matter. Comey described how Trump's White House operates in one of the excerpts from his book, which states,
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.
Trump addressed this claim that he demands loyalty from everyone that works for him in one of the several of tweets that he posted on Sunday morning. The president said, "I never asked Comey for Personal Loyalty. I hardly even knew this guy. Just another of his many lies." But this war of words between the former FBI director and the president is seriously heating up. In another excerpt from Comey's book, he refers to the president as "unethical and untethered to the truth." It reads,
This President is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values. His leadership is transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty.
Wow.
Now that is what I call a royal burn. No wonder Trump decided to attack Comey. Clearly the former FBI director feels some type of way about the president, and has enough ammo in his arsenal to fill 304 pages with.
On May 10, 2017, Trump brazenly fired Comey from his post as the director of the FBI. The move was so dramatic that political pundits believed that Trump might even be impeached over the decision to remove Comey.
Why did the president do this? The answer to that question is not quite clear. The president claimed that he decided to fire Comey because of his mishandling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server and the fact he wasn't doing "a good job." But the fact that at the time Comey was leading an investigation into whether or not Trump's presidential campaign colluded with the Russian government in order to sway the result of the 2016 election definitely raised some eyebrows, not to mention the fact that Trump later said he was thinking of "the Russia thing" when he fired Comey.
This isn't the first time that Trump has attacked Comey for his book, either. Just two days ago on April 13, Trump attacked Comey via Twitter, calling him a is a proven LEAKER & LIAR," among other things.
And who knows what the president might say next once the book is actually released. I don't think that Comey's publishers released all of the juicy bits from this book in the promotional excerpts. So I'm sure the best (or worst) is yet to come.
