Former President Donald Trump well and truly operated his presidency — and his efforts to keep it legally protected — like a Mafia operation, former FBI Director James Comey told MSNBC's Alex Wagner on Tuesday evening.
This comes as Trump's criminal hush payment trial in Manhattan moves closer and closer to jury deliberation — and as Republican allies of Trump come to New York to attack court officers' families and witnesses, which, Comey said, is by design.
"As you've watched this from the sidelines, give us the hypothesis, this is a form of organized crime," said Wagner. "What have you thought about this hush money trial?"
"It felt familiar to me," said Comey, who was infamously fired as FBI director by Trump shortly into his term after Comey refused to end investigations into Trump and his allies.
"I found my own reactions were so dramatic that I tried to suppress it, but kept coming back. It is back fully now. They even did the Cosa Nostra trick of bringing people to court to rattle the witness. Michael Corleone brings someone. But they even dress like the mobsters do. It felt familiar."
"The day that Donald Trump sent a $70,000 check to Michael Cohen reimbursing him for the hush money payments, that is the same day that he was pressuring you to end the Michael Flynn investigation," said Wagner. "I'm not presuming you know about the checks, but it suggests that he may have been multitasking. And I wonder, as we go back to the idea that the Trump Organization and the Trump presidency may have operated in a syndicate-like fashion, what parallels do you see in the boss being involved in all the business?"
"He turned the Oval Office into a social club, like a version of John Gotti's Ravenite social club," said Comey. "And people just came in with the business at hand. Some of it was government, and apparently, some of it was very private. I was not there to see him. I was there to see the chief of staff who said, do you want to visit the boss? And I said, I'm sure he's busy. And he said, come on. come on."
All of this felt very "Godfather," Wagner noted in response.
Watch the video below or at the link here.
James Comey says Trump was running a John Gotti-like mob operation youtu.be
