this is "nightline." >> tonight, fed up. >> he is morally unfit to be president. >> after former fbi director james comey's explosive interview about president trump, the abc news exclusive content with george that you haven't seen. >> there is a risk i'm blind to how i'm acting don't think so. his complaint about the current chief of staff. >> he intend to resign because he couldn't work for people that would treat people like me in such a dishonorable way. i liken president trump in the book to a forest fire. >> but the white house firing back today. >> this is somebody who is giving a revisionist version of history. the president hardly knew the man. >> "nightline" will be right

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sweetie, come eat outside. but it's to hot out there! perfect! make room for the judge! what's your dream? at ikea, we help you live it. make the dream yours. good evening. thank you for joining us. after former fbi director jam comey indictment of president trump tonight what you haven't heard yet from the exclusive interview. for the first time here on "nightline," giving an even deeper view into the mind of the

man who played a pivotal role in the 2016 election. >> a president must adhere to the values at the core of the country. the most important being truth. this president is not able to do that. he is morally unfit to be president. >> last night's stunning statement, ricocheting today on the news. >> this war of word between the president and, the fbi director who he fired. after james comey's explosive interview. >> i think he struggled to answer basic questions and looked shaky. >> president trump watched portions of abc news james comey interview. as he left the white house this morning he didn't answer abc news john carl. >> did you get a chance to watch the comey interview, mr. president, mr. president, comey says you are morally unfit to serve. any reaction, sir? the president did take to twitter yesterday morning to fume. calling the fired fbi director slippery. worst director in history. tonight "nightline" brings you more on the story of truth and lies.

>> you must tell the truth. it matters enormously. an extraordinary moment in american history with the former director of the fbi calls the president who fired him, destructive. >> i liken president trump in the book to a forest fire. going to do tremendous damage. going to damage those important norms. but a forest fire gives healthy things a chance to grow. >> promoting a higher loyalty, comey explains why he is stepping forward now. >> why the title, a higher loyalty? >> the title comes from a bizarre conversation with the president at dinner at the white house in january of last year. where he asked for my loyalty personally, as the fbity to theo people and the ens tuginstituti. it grows out of a lifetime. >> reporter: his moral compass called into question. petty attacks on the president. >> you said the president didn't laugh. not at all.

so struck by it it stayed with me. i went and tried to find examples of videos, where he is laughing. i could only find one, that wasn't really a genuine laugh. >> reporter: also under fire for the public role he played over two years. incidents reflect his own difficult choices between concealing or revealing information to the american fub licfub -- public. his first press conference, regarding hillary clinton's e-mails. comey concluding there was no criminal intent and no reason to prosecute clinton but he was also harshly critical. >> there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive highly classified information. >> reporter: he did not disclose his findings in advance to his boss attorney general loretta lynch. >> i decided i would read it, say it out loud, so that people could hear the tone of my voice. i wouldn't take any questions. >> reporter: comey was concerned the public might question lynch's impartiality after her

impromptu meeting on an airport tarmac with bill clinton. he sided to take matters into his own hands. >> critics say your ego got the best of you your original sin. >> i hear that. always a risk that i am blind to how i am acting. i don't think so. if it was about ego why would i step out in front of the organization and get shot 1,000 times. >> reporter: in a statement to abc news yesterday, loretta lynch denied discussing the investigation with any one from the clinton campaign or the dnc and said in part that if james comey had any concerns regarding the e-mail investigation, cla classified or not he had ample opportunities to raise them with me privately and in meetings. he never did. his second struggle to come clean or hold back, october 28th, 2016, 11 days before election day. the fbi bombshell for hillary clinton revealing they will now investigate newly discovered e-mails. hillary clinton is convinced that letter defeated her. what do you say to her?

>> i hope not. i don't know. i honestly don't know. i sure hope not. but, the honest answer is it wouldn't change the way i think about it. i know now i didn't find anything. but you have to come with me to the 28th of october, silt there with me. what would you do? i see two doors. i can't find a door that says no action. two actions speak or conceal. speaking would be terrible. concealing would be catastrophic. >> most of the clinton camp was fiercely critical of comey's decision. comey's wife, patrice, a clinton supporter disagrees. >> as supporter of hillary clinton i wanted her to say that's what iowan the fbi to do. they have to do that. instead i feel look she attacked the institution and my husband. i was disappointed. i still wanted her to win. >> reporter: her husband would stay silent during the electtion about information donald trump's campaign was the subject of an fbi counterintelligence investigation for possible coordination with russia. this was very different. we did not want the americans to

know we had reason to believe they might be working with the russians because we got to run this down and investigate it. >> reporter: in january, 2017, comey does tell the incoming president about sensitive but unverified information the fbi received from what they believe to be a credible source. a salacious al gafgs trump's encounter with prostitutes in moscow. >> why tell him? >> we have been told by the press they're about to run with it. one way to defeat the adversary is tell the person that may be black mailed, we the government know about this. you will not be able to hide it. they don't have leverage on you. second, he is going to be president of the united states. how could we, the leaders of the intelligence community know something, whether it is true or not about him personally, that is going to become public, that the russians may have and not share it with him. >> did you tell him the steel dosier had been financed by political opponents? >> no, i don't think i used the term steel dossier. additional material. >> did he have the right to know

that? >> that it had been financed by his political opponents. i don't know the answer to that. it wasn't necessary for my gel which is to alert him that, we had this information. >> i will faithfully execute the office of president of the united states. >> days after the inauguration, in a private one-on-one dinner at the white house, comey says the president makes a request. >> he said, i expect loyalty, i need loyalty. and i just, stared at him. and this little narrative with myself inside, saying, don't you move. don't you dare move. don't even blink. >> why not say no? >> i think because i was caught by surprise. >> reporter: he says the president asked a second time. comey hedges and agrees to give the president "honest loyalty." >> given that i worried he might not tell the truth. i thought i knead to have a written record of this. i went home on my personal computer and created a memo. kept a copy in my personal safe at home.

left a copy at the fbi because the it was abut both protecting the fbi and protecting me. >> reporter: he documented a meeting with the president. february 2017, the day after nsa director michael flynn was fired. comey says trump made a request. he said he hopes i can let it go. when he said that, you thought? >> he is asking me to drop the criminal investigation of his now former national security adviser. i took the -- expression of hope as -- this is what i, what i want you to do. >> the president says he didn't say that. >> yeah, well. what am i going to do? he did. comey's story about the conversation has stayed the same. do you solemnly swear to tell the truth. from his senate testimony under oath. >> i took it as a direction. he is the president of the united states with me alone saying i hope this. i took it as this is what he wants me to do. i didn't obey that. that's the way i took it. >> reporter: comey would leak his memos a decision he hope would and in fact did lead to appointment of special counsel robert mueller to oversee the

fbi investigation into coordination between the trump campaign and russia. that investigation, now include a potential obstruction of justice case involving comey's firing. >> if robert mueller decide to bring a case, would you be a witness for the prosecution? >> sure, if he asked me to be. i'm a fact witness. that relates to i'm sure to obstruction investigation. where that is going to go, don't know. >> mr. mueller, are you investigating the president? >> as mueller's investigation continues to heat up. comey still questions why trump seems often hesitant to criticize vladamir putin. >> why is president trump so reluctant to call out vladamir putin? >> i don't know. i am struck by it. and i'm struck by it, both in public and in private. you would think in private, talking to the fbi director, whose job it is to, thwart russian attacks, you might acknowledge that this enemy of ours is an enemy of ours.

but i never saw it. >> do you think the russians have something on donald trump? >> i think it is possible. i don't know. these are more word i never thought i would outer about a president of the united states. possible. >> that's stunning. you can't say for certain that the president of the united states is not compromised by the russians? >> it is stunning. i wish i wasn't saying it. it is just the truth. it, always struck me and still strikes me as unlikely. and i would have been able to say with high confidence about any other president that i dealt with. but i can't. it's possible. >> reporter: when we come back, former director comey's remarkable claim about president trump's current chief of staff, john kelly. >> he intended to resign because he wouldn't work for people who would treat someone like me in such a dishonorable way. he was going to quit. embrace the chance of 100% clear skin with taltz. for people with moderate to severe psoriasis, up to 90% had a significant improvement

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on the day james comey was fired, the career law man realized the fib rules he had followed didn't really apply. >> i was no longer an employee. i wasn't breaking the rule. i took a bottle of red wine out of my suitcase. i asked the pilots could i sit up with them. i had never done with it. sat in the jump seat between the two pilots. watched them land along the potomac. then we shook hands. with tears in our eyes. and then, i left and got driven home. >> reporter: amid the flurry of calls, comey received that day, he says there was one that stuck out. >> john kelly who was then secretary of homeland security told me. he was very upset. very emotional. he said he had seen the news. and that he intended to resign

because he wouldn't work for people who would treat someone like he in such dishonorable way. he was going to quit. >> what did you tell him? >> please don't do that. this president need people of character and principle around him. especially this president. i said we need you to stay and serve for the country. >> general kelly didn't resign. going on to become white house chief of staff. >> at what point do people serve in order to protect the institution? to protect the country? and at what point does it cross over into enabling bad behavior? >> that is the question. the challenge of this president is that he will stain everyone around him, and the question is, how much stain eventually makes you unable to accomplish your goal of protecting the country and serving the country. >> the white house referred us to rnc statement attacking his credibility claiming comey

contradicted himself in testimony and made bizarre decisions as director. comey turned his attention to his next steps. >> it wasn't until, the president tweeted at me, that friday morning after i was fired that -- james comey better hope there aren't tapes of our conversations. that i sort of snapped back to the present. >> reporter: this all set into motion that leak heard round the world. comey's first corroborate his side. >> somebody has got to go get the tapes. i trust the fbi because they will see what i see. but i don't trust the leadership of the department of justice to do it. >> why not? >> the deputy attorney general, in my view acted dishonorably putting out this pretext of why i was fired. i can't trust him. >> the deputy ag rod rosenstein with attorney general jeff sessions signed letters recommending comey's dismissal. >> what do you make of the

attorney general? >> i don't know what to make of him. my sense of him maybe unfair to him he was overmatched for the job. and -- that the job was much, much bigger noon he was. he was going to struggle in it. that's my sense. >> reporter: comey kept ape writtwri -- kept a written record of his interactions. he made a decision. >> the unclassified encounters, wrote them up on my personal computer. thank goodness i kept a copy here. i was banned from the property. one of the orders that was issued i was never to be allowed back on fbi property plieklike killed somebody. comey controversially gives a memo off to the friend who read it to "the new york times." >> the president tweeted calling you a leaker because of that. first of all what is your rinse to president trump? >> look, it's true. i mean i am the one who testified about it. that's how people know about it. i gave the unclassified memo to my friend and asked hem to give it to a reporter.

that is entirely appropriate. >> reporter: the white house tried to get out in front of comey's book and interview. launching a full-scale counterattack. the president tweeting calling comey a slimeball, a leaker and a liar. >> comey will forever be known as a disgraced partisan hack. >> last friday, press secretary sarah sanders reading from a prepared statement. >> this is nothing more than a poorly executed pr stunt by comey to desperately rehabilitate his tattered reputation and enrich his bank account. republican national committee, lyingcomey.com to discredit him. the tension between the president and comey is not likely to flame out anytime soon. in the time of division and dissent, comey says that perhaps a little heat is a good thing. >> terrible things happen in forest fires. but i am an optimistic person. i see already things growing and flourishing that, that, didn't before this fire. i see the kids marching in the streets. including my own kids, about guns. i see parents talking to their

kids about truth telling. and prejudice and bias and respect. that was not happening three, four years ago. and so there is a lot of good growing. >> for comey it all comes back to his ideals which he says, are fundamentally american. >> people who tell themselves, well, yes donald trump is unethical, but i am getting the right supreme court justice, or the right regulatory roll back. are kidding themselves. because the if we lose that tether to the truth, if that stops being the norm at the heart of our public life, what are we? where are we as a country? >> reporter: he will go down in history perhaps as one of the most polarizing public figures. >> one of my kids shared with me a tweet, become one of my favorites, where some one said that comey is such a political hack. i just can't figure out which party. >> aren't you concerned that public trust has taken a hit because of the decisions you made? >> of course i am. i screwed up a couple things. but in the main, i think given what i knew at the time, these were the decisions that were

best calculated. my hope in this book is not that people agree with me. they may still walk out of this thinking i am an idiot. but an honest idiot. >> james comey will be on "gma" live tomorrow morning. next, hard to be humble after the incredible first of its kind honor for kendrick lamar. ♪ ♪ adults are just kids with much, much better toys. introducing the 2018 c-class sedan, coupe and cabriolet. the thrills keep getting better. lease the c300 sedan for $419 a month

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is the greatest possibility of all. purina pro plan. nutrition that performs. our 3 contestants are all at the big ikea table. who's going to be tonight's winning chef? contestant #1, impressive knife skills. but contestant #2 fights back by using fresh parsley. and, contestant #3 adds a touch of sweetness. sweetie, come eat outside. but it's to hot out there! perfect! make room for the judge! what's your dream? at ikea, we help you live it. make the dream yours.

finally tonight, who is corn row kenny, kung fu kenny, a pulitzer prize winner, that's who. can kendrick lamar stay humble after this. >> the prize is awarded to kendrick lamar. >> now pulitzer prize winner taking home coveted music award for his album, with 12 grammys to his flame, seems like winning is in his dna.

first musician outside of classical and jazz ever to win a pull itser. with feats this good, all the stars, align. good for him. thank you for watching "nightline." and as always, we're online, 24/7, "nightline" facebook page. thank you for the company, america. good night. fearcrazy enough to believe it can change the world. fearless is resilient enough to suffer the slings and arrows - and come out stronger. fearless reads the rules, understands the limitations, listens to the naysayers - and then goes ahead and does it anyway. you know what we make.

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