Donald Trump’s tussle with James Comey is about to get very ugly

As awkward silences go, this was a doozy. James Comey, then FBI director, was sitting alone in an excruciatingly uncomfortable dinner with a newly-elected President Trump. The two uniformed Navy stewards serving food and drinks had discreetly withdrawn. ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty,’ the President supposedly said, according to Comey’s notes. Comey recalls: ‘I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other.’ At the end of the dinner, Trump is said to have returned to what seemed to Comey like the whole purpose of the dinner. ‘I need loyalty,’ he said, in Comey’s notes. ‘You will always get honesty from me,’ Comey replied.

That is Comey’s account, drawn from notes he rapped out on an FBI laptop in the back of his limo as it drove away from the White House. This version of events is contained in seven pages of Comey’s written