James Comey to reveal new information on Trump and respond to 'lies' about FBI in nationwide book tour

Ousted FBI director James Comey is to reveal previously undisclosed information about investigating Donald Trump’s campaign and respond to “lies” about the FBI, when he embarks on a nationwide tour to promote a new book.

The man fired by Mr Trump last May, a move that resulted in the appointment of special prosecutor Robert Mueller to carry out a wide-ranging investigation, will visit 11 cities, from Portland to Kansas City, Missouri, to publicise and discuss the book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership. He will also give three high-profile television interviews. The first appearance will be in New York on 18 April.

Mr Comey will share “never-before-told experiences from some of the highest-stakes situations of his career – from prosecuting the Mafia and Martha Stewart to overseeing the Hillary Clinton email investigation as well as ties between the Trump campaign and Russia”.

The book’s press release, adds: “In A Higher Loyalty, Comey explores what good, ethical leadership looks like, and how it drives sound decisions.”

Mr Comey, who was fired after Mr Trump admitted to becoming frustrated with the probe into Russia alleged interference in the 2016 election and possible links between his campaign and Moscow, has publicly remained largely silent since his firing. Mr Mueller has since launched his own probe into possible links between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Four former campaign staff have been indicted with various offences.

Axios reported Mr Comey intended to respond to a “lot of lies and misstatements about the FBI that he intends to correct”. “He didn’t want to be in this position, but is embracing it,” it added, saying Mr Comey would compare and contrast two of the presidents he has worked for, George W Bush and Barack Obama, with Mr Trump.

Many books in Washington are greeted with what frequently amounts to near hysteria by the capital’s political class. One example was Michael Wolff’s recent best-seller Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, which collated often anonymous sources from inside the West Wing to portray an environment of chaos and a President who was frequently clueless about how to respond to issues.

While Mr Wolff has stood by his account, the White House has dismissed it as lies and some reporters have questioned whether the picture it presented is 100 per cent accurate.

Mr Comey’s account is being similarly hotly anticipated, but for different reasons. He is an account of someone at the heart of the federal law enforcement world who apparently clashed with the President because of his refusal to swear personal loyalty to him. Last summer, Mr Comey testified the President had asked him to “let go” of the ongoing investigation into sacked national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Appearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mr Comey said the President had lied when he claimed to the American public that the FBI was in disarray and that agents had lost confidence in him. “Those were lies, plain and simple,” he said. He said that he started taking notes about his meeting with the President as he could not be sure Mr Trump might lie about what was said between them.

He admitted he shared those memos with close friends, some of whom then passed on some of that information to the media.

Among the people Mr Comey shared his worries about Mr Trump with was Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and editor in chief of the widely-read Lawfare blog.

Asked by The Independent why Mr Comey felt he needed to write the book, Mr Wittes replied: “The book will speak for itself, and to the extent it requires commentary, Jim will be speaking on it himself.”

US website Politico said intense security was being deployed by publisher Flatiron Books to prevent leaks ahead of publication. It said rather than circulating print drafts among the editors and agents working on the book, it had implemented a password-protected electronic system “so that only those involved in the project have access to it”.

It added: “The project is stored under a code name so that staffers who are not involved in the project wouldn’t know where to find it if they tried. At warehouses that will ship out copies of the book, workers are being asked to sign nondisclosure agreements, according to people familiar with the procedures.”

It said that among the episodes that the book will cover will be a one-on-one dinner between the two men and the so-called Trump dossier produced by former British spy Christopher Steele.