For the second time in 2018, a book originating behind the scenes of the Trump White House erupts onto the nonfiction bestseller lists: the year began with Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, and now readers get A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Loyalty by former FBI director James Comey, whose firing by Donald Trump in May of 2017 helped to trigger the US Department of Justice probe headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and tasked with investigating any possible Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election – an investigation the FBI had first begun under Comey's direction.
Now Comey has written a book. A Higher Loyalty is technically a memoir, but it's unlikely that any of its millions of readers will care about the details of Comey's upbringing and personal life, nor about his departmental work-life. In reality this is almost exclusively a Trump administration exposé, and unlike Michael Wolff's book, this one is written by a former member of that administration. Wolff could be dismissed by Trump's defenders as a mercenary gossip. But a former FBI director writing a tell-all about a sitting president? That's a far, far more serious thing.
Or at least it should be. But directly underneath its starchy pieties and pseudo-literary veneer, there are a great many touches here that can only be called "novelistic". A Higher Loyalty reads like just another gossipy tattle piece, essentially Fire and Fury 2: This Time It's Personal.
Comey makes serious, albeit by now very familiar, criticisms of Mr Trump: that he's “unethical and untethered to truth and institutional values,” that his leadership is “transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty,” and, in what is sure to be the book's main media talking point, that he runs his White House like a Mafia boss – an atmosphere familiar to Comey from his years prosecuting the Gambino crime family: "The boss [is] in complete control,” he characterizes things. “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."
Comey's portrait is one of a megalomaniacal narcissist, someone drastically unfit for office and, as he writes in the book's final pages, someone who's a serious danger to the country. The whole account should be unprecedentedly damning.
Two things stop it from being that. The first is minor but also screamingly hypocritical: sprinkled throughout the book is exactly the kind of schoolyard mockery for which Mr Trump himself has been rightly condemned. Mr Trump's hands and hair and eyes and face and posture all come in for snide asides.
But much worse is the book's most stunning revelation, which is about Comey, not Mr Trump. Two weeks before the election in 2016, then-FBI director Comey announced to Congress that the organisation had re-opened its investigation into the private email server Hillary Clinton had used as US Secretary of State. Such a grandstanding play was totally out of line with the FBI's normal procedures, and Mrs Clinton's standing plummeted in the polls overnight. She subsequently lost key states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan by such slim margins that the blame can easily be laid at Comey's feet. More than any other single person, James Comey himself is responsible for President Donald Trump.
In A Higher Loyalty, Comey admits that his actions in 2016 were politically motivated. His torturous logic? Like most of the country, he was certain Mrs Clinton would win the election and didn't want her new presidency tainted by the revelation that he'd kept quiet about the re-opened investigation. And his utterly unbelievable contention in these pages? That despite his 15 years of experience as a Washington insider serving under two presidents, the chance that his announcement would wreck Mrs Clinton's campaign never occurred to him. And the question of what the FBI director was doing meddling in a presidential election for any reason is never addressed.
It ultimately sinks the book. Readers of A Higher Loyalty will be left with the deeply ironic impression that James Comey is actually very Trump-like: his higher loyalty is reserved mainly for himself.
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Racecard
6.30pm: Mazrat Al Ruwayah Group Two (PA) US$55,000 (Dirt) 1,600m
7.05pm: Meydan Trophy (TB) $100,000 (Turf) 1,900m
7.40pm: Handicap (TB) $135,000 (D) 1,200m
8.15pm: Balanchine Group Two (TB) $250,000 (T) 1,800m
8.50pm: Handicap (TB) $135,000 (T) 1,000m
9.25pm: Firebreak Stakes Group Three (TB) $200,000 (D) 1,600m
10pm: Handicap (TB) $175,000 (T) 2,410m
The National selections: 6.30pm: RM Lam Tara, 7.05pm: Al Mukhtar Star, 7.40pm: Bochart, 8.15pm: Magic Lily, 8.50pm: Roulston Scar, 9.25pm: Quip, 10pm: Jalmoud
Mina Cup winners
Under 12 – Minerva Academy
Under 14 – Unam Pumas
Under 16 – Fursan Hispania
Under 18 – Madenat
