An early chapter in James Comey's memoir A Higher Loyalty describes his role as prosecuting attorney in the trial of a senior leader of the Gambino crime family. His witnesses included Sammy the Bull Gravano, who admitted to nineteen murders, and Gaspare Mutolo, a Sicilian hitman who could not recall the number of people he had killed. Comey's experience going up against La Cosa Nostra provides him with an analogy for the management style of Donald Trump, whom he briefly served as Director of the FBI until the President fired him. In both, Comey sees: The Life of Lies. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. Loyalty oaths. An us-versus-them worldview. Lying about things, large and small, in service to some warped code of loyalty.It is an astonishing indictment – a former top law enforcement officer comparing the sitting President to a mob boss –…
