April 13, 2018

Donald Trump Rages at Former FBI Director James Comey

“He is a weak and untruthful slime ball.”

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On Thursday night, the first details of James Comey’s new book, which comes out next week, rolled in. In A Higher Loyalty, the former FBI director is unsparing in his portrait of Donald Trump, whom he likens to a crime boss and blasts as “unethical and untethered to truth.” On Friday morning, Trump took to Twitter to assail Comey as a “leaker and a liar” and to suggest, once again, that the ex-FBI chief should face prosecution. 

Comey oversaw the FBI’s investigation into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election. The president abruptly fired him last May, a move Trump acknowledged was related to the cloud he was under from the Russia probe and which raised questions about whether Trump was obstructing justice.

“It was my great honor to fire James Comey!” Trump tweeted on Friday. And he contended that “virtually everyone in Washington” thought Comey should be fired—a claim that, as Comey would say, is “untethered to the truth.” 

If Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury is any indication, Trump’s attack on Comey and his book may mean the ex-FBI director has a huge bestseller on his hands.

If you buy a book using a Bookshop link on this page, a small share of the proceeds supports our journalism.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate