James Comey’s tell-all book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, is already a bestseller, but on Thursday the Associated Press ensured a second work by the former F.B.I. director would circulate just as widely when it published 15 pages of Comey’s unreleased memos. Much of the information contained within the documents, which were written contemporaneously by Comey after his meetings with the president early last year, is by now widely known and understood, thanks to a combination of Comey’s congressional testimony, his book, and his recent rash of TV interviews. But one of the more remarkable aspects of the newly released memos remains the president’s obsession with a very specific allegation, pieces of which, he reveals, had been corroborated by the work of other intelligence agencies.

In nearly every interaction they had, Comey recalled that Trump returned to the topic of the Steele dossier, a report compiled by an ex-British spy. Among other things, the dossier contains allegations that the Russians possess what has come to be known as the “pee tape”—a recording of certain interactions between the president and prostitutes in a Moscow hotel room in 2013. When he informed Trump of the allegations, Comey recalled, the president “interjected”: “‘There were no prostitutes; there were never prostitutes.’ He then said something about him being the kind of guy who didn’t need to ‘go there’ and laughed (which I understood to be communicating that he didn't need to pay for sex).” Per Comey, Trump was not unwilling to extemporize on the subject:

He said “2013” to himself as if trying to remember that period of time . . . He said he always assumed that hotels he stayed in when he travels are wired in some way. I replied that I do as well.

He then started talking about all the women who had falsely accused him of grabbing or touching them (with particular mention of a “stripper” who said he grabbed her) . . .

The president said “the hookers thing” is nonsense, but that Putin had told him “we have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world.”