FORMER FBI director James Comey has unleashed on Donald Trump in his new book ‘A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership’ in which he describes the US president as “untethered to truth”.

The book largely focuses on a laundry list of political flashpoints from the 2016 election campaign and the early months of the Trump administration based on Mr Comey’s interactions with him.

The president has since offered a mini-review of Mr Comey’s memoir in a Tweet:

“The big questions in Comey’s badly reviewed book aren’t answered like, how come he gave up Classified Information (jail), why did he lie to Congress (jail), why did the DNC refuse to give Server to the FBI (why didn’t they TAKE it), why the phony memos, McCabe’s $700,000 & more?”

The jumble of references appeared to allude to unsubstantiated accusations Mr Trump has previously made claiming Mr Comey lied in Senate testimony last May in denying he had served as an anonymous news source.

But it’s the jabs in the book about Mr Trump’s appearance, personality and behind-the-scenes behaviour that are likely to have most aggravated the thin-skinned leader of the free world. In a string of sensational burns towards the president, little was off limits, from Mr Trump’s alleged tiny hands to his apparent use of “tanning goggles”, in Mr Comey’s book released last week.

Here are some of the highlights.

TAKING AIM AT TRUMP’S APPEARANCE

In his book, Mr Comey takes direct aim at Mr Trump’s appearance, a particularly sensitive topic for the president, although a tactic he often employs himself when insulting others.

A large man at 6-foot-8, Mr Comey notes that he checked the president’s hand size: It was “smaller than mine but did not seem unusually so”.

He also describes the president as shorter than he expected, his tie was “too long,” and he had “bright white half-moons under his eyes” that Mr Comey says he believes came from tanning goggles.

He does, however, give Trump some credit. “He had impressively coiffed, bright blond hair, which upon close inspection looked to be all his,” Mr Comey writes.

“I remember wondering how long it must take him in the morning to get that done.”

TRUMP’S LEGAL WOES

In his book, Mr Comey likens Mr Trump to a dishonest, ego-driven mob boss and says he demanded the then FBI chief’s personal pledge of loyalty.

That damning account has infuriated the president at a moment of intensifying legal pressure on other fronts.

The probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians during the 2016 presidential race, now led by independent special prosecutor Robert Mueller, increasingly menaces Trump’s inner circle.

And last week federal agents in New York raided the office and hotel room of Mr Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, possibly in connection with secret hush payments he made to women claiming they had affairs with Trump.

MAFIA’ BOSS TRUMP THREATENS THE NATION

To Mr Comey, Mr Trump is everything a president shouldn’t be. And he’s not mincing words.

Mr Comey repeatedly compares Mr Trump’s behaviour to a New York mafia don. He calls him “untethered to truth,” “unethical” and a “forest fire” burning through the foundation of American democracy, norms and values. “Donald Trump’s presidency threatens much of what is good in this nation,” Mr Comey writes. He went even further while promoting the book in an ABC interview with anchor George Stephanopoulos. “A person who sees moral equivalence in Charlottesville, who talks about and treats women like they’re pieces of meat, who lies constantly about matters big and small and insists the American people believe it, that person’s not fit to be president of the United States, on moral grounds,” Mr Comey said.

TRUMP, RUSSIAN PROSTITUTES AND THE MUELLER INVESTIGATION

Much of Mr Comey’s version of his interactions with Mr Trump regarding Russia came out during his congressional testimony last year. But the book and his interview reveal some telling details.

Mr Comey says Mr Trump seemed fixated on an allegation made in a dossier compiled by a former British spy — and funded by Mr Trump’s political opponents — involving Russian prostitutes urinating on a bed in a Moscow hotel. The president brought up the allegation multiple times, Mr Comey writes, including an unprompted denial: “I’m a germaphobe. There’s no way I would let people pee on each other around me. No way,” Mr Comey quotes the president as saying.

Mr Comey also writes that Mr Trump considered asking the FBI to debunk the allegation to reassure his wife, Melania Trump.

Prostitutes aside, Mr Comey says the president and his team were much less concerned about the national security threat of Russian election meddling. “They were about to lead a country that had been attacked by a foreign adversary, yet they had no questions about what the future Russian threat might be,” Mr Comey writes. Instead, they launched into a strategy session about how to “spin what we’d just told them” for the public, he writes.

Mr Comey largely avoids talking about the Mueller investigation in detail. But he told ABC News that he believes there’s evidence that the president obstructed justice and says he can’t rule out that the Russians have compromising information on Mr Trump.

“It’s possible,” Mr Comey said.