Morbid intimacies and mafia- style habits: living with Trump

The former Director of the FBI, James Comey, has had a feast-day with the US president in a memoir that is about to be published and goes as far as to compare Donald Trump’s leadership with the heads of the mob that he fought during his years as a prosecutor. The book is titled A higher loyalty, with a clear reference to the “loyalty” Trump demanded just before dismissing him almost a year ago. “The circle of silent assent. The oaths of allegiance. The worldview of ’us against them’. The lies about everything, large and small, in the service of a code of loyalty that puts his organisation above morality and truth,” writes Comey of the months that he led the FBI.

The book also relates Trump’s obsession with the controversial yet unverified report by a British spy who claimed that in 2013 the New York mogul hired Russian prostitutes in Moscow in a scandalous escapade. According to the document, Trump ordered the girls to urinate on the mattress in the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton hotel which had hosted the then US President, Barack Obama, with his wife during a visit to Russian capital. This was not the only such incident.

Yesterday, the President lashed out at Comey’s claims, labelling him as an “informer” and a “liar.”