James Comey book: Trump likened to mob boss, called 'unethical and untethered to truth'

Christal Hayes | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption James Comey compares President Trump to a mob boss Former FBI director, James Comey does not hold back in his new book, 'A Higher Loyalty.' He attacks President Trump, calling him 'unethical' and 'untethered to truth.'

James Comey's tell-all book details his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation and private interactions he had with President Trump, a man he blasts as "untethered to truth," according to multiple reports.

Comey's book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, is set to hit shelves on Tuesday but copies were obtained by several media outlets, including the Associated Press, The Washington Post and New York Times.

Comey likens Trump to a mob boss while writing about his career as a prosecutor and highlights "loyalty oaths," one of which he claims Trump asked of him. The former FBI director describes Trump as creating a "cocoon of alternative reality that he was busily wrapping around all of us," according to The Washington Post.

The book is filled with vivid details of his encounters with many of Washington, D.C,'s elite — both Democrats and Republicans, including members of Trump's Cabinet. It details Comey's career and "the forest fire that is the Trump presidency" that he says led to the end of it.

"This president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values," Comey writes in the book, according to The New York Times. "His leadership is transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty."

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In one of the more salacious tidbits, the book alleges Trump asked Comey for an investigation of the alleged "golden shower" tape to reassure his wife that it was fake, according to a report by the New York Post.

The unsubstantiated allegations, which were described in a dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, say that Trump hired prostitutes to urinate in front of him in a hotel room in Moscow.

"He brought up what he called the ‘golden showers thing’ … adding that it bothered him if there was ‘even a one percent chance’ his wife, Melania, thought it was true," Comey wrote, according to the Post.

Trump continued unprompted, Comey said, "explaining why it couldn’t possibly be true, ending by saying he was thinking of asking me to investigate the allegation to prove it was a lie. I said it was up to him."

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Comey cautioned the president that any probe might "create a narrative" that the FBI was investigating him, the Post reported.

Privately, Comey wrote, he wondered why there would even be a 1 percent chance Melania Trump would believe the allegations.

"In what kind of marriage, to what kind of man, does a spouse conclude there is only a 99 percent chance her husband didn’t do that?" he wrote in the book.

Comey also talks about his inner battle with how he handled the Clinton email investigation, even talks he had with President Obama and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

“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," Obama told Comey in a private Oval Office meeting, according to The Washington Post.

Comey describes Lynch as having a "tortured half-out, half-in approach" to the Clinton investigation and that she had asked him to refer to the probe as a "matter" instead of an "investigation."

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