Ex-FBI chief Comey: Trump ran White House like a 'mob boss'

Former FBI director James Comey says in a new book that President Donald Trump reminded him of a mafia boss who demanded absolute loyalty, saw the entire world against him, and lied about everything.

According to excerpts of the book leaked by US media today, Trump was also obsessed with the alleged existence of a video in which Russian prostitutes said to be hired by Trump urinated on the bed in a Moscow hotel room.

In the book to be released officially next Tuesday, Comey, whom Trump fired in May 2017, says the US president lives in "a cocoon of alternative reality" that he tried to pull others around him into, according to The Washington Post.

Meetings with Trump gave Comey "flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the Mob," he writes.

"The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organisation above morality and above the truth."
"His leadership is transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty."
But "A Higher Loyalty" shares little new about the Russia investigation, with Comey bound to respect the classified nature of the Mueller investigation that Trump just this week labeled "fake & corrupt."
"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."