In an excerpt of the book obtained by the New York Post, Comey recounts that at a dinner with Trump early in his presidency, the conversation turned to the possible existence of a salacious tape involving the president of the United States and urination.
Writes Comey, according to the Post:
"He brought up what he called the 'golden showers thing. It bothered him if there was 'even a one percent chance' his wife, Melania, thought it was true. ... He just rolled on, unprompted, explaining why it couldn't possibly be true, ending by saying he was thinking of asking me to investigate the allegation to prove it was a lie. I said it was up to him."
That revelation landed like an atomic bomb in political Washington.
While the rumored existence of the so-called "pee tape" had been swirling in Washington since BuzzFeed published the full dossier on Trump prepared during the 2016 election by former British spy Christopher Steele, most news organizations -- including CNN -- had avoided reporting on it. BuzzFeed News published the full, unverified dossier that included the infamous claim that Russian authorities had evidence of Trump watching prostitutes urinate in a hotel suite.
While portions of the dossier had been confirmed by the US intelligence community, other pieces of it -- including the most salacious details -- had not.
