Comey memos detail conversations with President Trump

World Today

(FILES) In this file photo taken on June 8, 2017 former FBI director James Comey speaks during a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump denied April 18, 2018 having fired FBI director James Comey a year ago over the investigation into links between his election campaign and Russia. Trump made the denial as a new book by Comey added fuel to allegations that Trump may have engaged in criminal obstruction of justice when he dismissed Comey on May 9, 2017.”Slippery James Comey, the worst FBI Director in history, was not fired because of the phony Russia investigation where, by the way, there was NO COLLUSION (except by the Dems)!” Trump said via Twitter early Wednesday. (AFP PHOTO / Brendan Smialowski)

Fired former FBI Director James Comey is in the news again. Memos that he wrote after key meetings with U.S. President Donald Trump were handed over to the U.S.

Congress and then leaked to the media Thursday night. The memos repeat much of what Comey wrote in his book and in Congressional testimony – but the reports written in real time, reveal a president fixated on loyalty and the swirling investigation into his campaign ties to possible Russian interference.

CGTN’s Nathan King reports from the White House.

The fired former FBI director has been on TV all week—promoting his book “A Higher Loyalty.” The title is an apt one because according to newly-released redacted memos, the U.S. president asked his then FBI boss for loyalty both personal and political.

One memo reads in part: “He then returned to loyalty, saying ‘I need loyalty.’ I replied that he would always get honesty from me. He paused and said that’s what he wants, ‘honest loyalty.’ I replied ‘you will get that from me.’

The memos detail previous allegations that President Trump pushed the FBI head to make the investigation into his first national security adviser go away. And Comey writes that the president was obsessed with the so-called Dossier compiled by his political opponents which alleges Trump consorted with prostitutes at a Russian Hotel. Comey writes in part: “I said, the Russians allegedly had tapes involving him and prostitutes at the Presidential Suite at the Ritz Carlton in Moscow from about 2013. He interjected, ‘There were no prostitutes; there were never prostitutes.’”

The U.S. President hit back, tweeting Friday that the leak of the memos is a “witch hunt.”

Comey said his book is designed in part to start a conversation about ethics and morality in political life. He said he is not out to get the president that fired him- and in fact bears him no ill feelings.