Before Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9 of last year, he asked Comey if the bureau could investigate the infamous “pee tape” allegations contained in an explosive intelligence dossier that said Trump is under a blackmail threat by the Russian government, according to an account in Comey’s new book A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership revealed on Thursday. The book is scheduled for publication on April 17.
But the New York Post obtained an advance copy of the book and reported Comey’s passage describing Trump’s seemingly deep concern about the alleged tape. Trump was not worried that the Russian government might be blackmailing him, the report said. Instead, Trump’s main concern was that his wife, Melania Trump, would believe that the “pee tape” story was real.
The “pee tape” incident appeared in the dossier of intelligence information compiled by former British intelligence agent and Russia expert Christopher Steele. In the dossier, Steele reported that sources told him Trump had paid prostitutes at the Moscow Ritz Carlton Hotel in 2013 to perform a “golden showers” show for him, urinating on a bed previously slept in by President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama during an earlier state visit to Moscow. The incident was filmed by Russian intelligence agents and the recording was kept by the Russians as possible blackmail material against Trump, the dossier says.
Read the entire Steele Dossier online by visiting this link .
“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 in his upcoming book , according to the Post account. “He just rolled on, unprompted, 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.”
Comey warned Trump that if the FBI opened an investigation into the “golden showers thing,” the media might be able to report that Trump was under investigation personally, the former FBI director wrote. Trump acknowledged that Comey “might be right,” but told Comey to consider opening the investigation regardless, the book says.
Comey, in his book, then added one of numerous personal comments about Trump, asking, “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?”
According to a report by NBC News , which also examined an advance copy of Comey’s book, the former FBI director includes many more “strikingly personal jabs… that appear likely to irritate” Trump, such as his description of Trump as having “bright white half-moons” under his eyes, from Trump’s use of tanning goggles, Comey assumes.
He also notes the much-discussed size of Trump’s hands, concluding that they are “smaller than mine, but did not seem unusually so.”
Comey begins a book tour to promote A Higher Loyalty next week, and the Republican National Committee has already initiated a campaign to discredit the fired FBI chief, creating a website with the title “Lyin’ Comey,” and accusing the ex-FBI chief of “a self-serving attempt to make money and rehabilitate his own image,” by writing the book and embarking on the publicity tour.