Trump faces new crisis

US President Donald Trump lashed out at a bombshell-filled book that hit the shelves yesterday, dismissing it as "full of lies" after threats of legal action failed to block its release.

Publishers responded to a cease-and-desist letter by moving forward by four days the release of "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" -- an expose by author and political muckraker Michael Wolff that quotes key Trump aides expressing serious doubt about his fitness for office.

"I authorized Zero access to White House (actually turned him down many times) for author of phony book! I never spoke to him for book. Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don't exist," Trump tweeted.

"Look at this guy's past and watch what happens to him and Sloppy Steve!" Trump wrote -- a possible reference to Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist, or Steve Rubin, the publisher of Wolff's book.

The book -- which paints Trump as mentally unstable and far out of his depth -- includes extensive quotes from Bannon, who also received a "cease and desist" order from Trump's attorneys.

"Your publication of the false/baseless statements about Mr. Trump gives rise to, among other claims, defamation by libel, defamation by libel per se, false light invasion of privacy, tortious interference with contractual relations, and inducement of breach of contract," Trump's lawyers said in the letter to Wolff.

Charles Harder, Trump's personal lawyer, in a legal notice provided to Reuters, warned of possible claims including libel against Wolff and publisher Henry Holt & Co and threatened to try to block publication of the book. Harder also told Reuters that "legal action is imminent" against Bannon.

In the book, excerpts of which were published this week, Bannon is quoted accusing Trump's eldest son Don Jr of "treasonous" contacts with a Kremlin-connected lawyer, and saying the president's daughter Ivanka, who imagines running for president one day, is "dumb as a brick."

But it is Trump himself who is cast in the most unfavourable light by a series of his top aides, reported AFP.

The book claims that for "Steve Mnuchin and Reince Priebus, the president was an 'idiot.' For Gary Cohn, he was 'dumb as shit.' For H.R. McMaster, he was a 'dope.' The list went on."

White House issued a scorched-earth dismissal of the book, its author and his sources.