In an interview given on Friday morning, April 13, former FBI Director James Comey opens up about his role in the 2016 election, his dismissal from the FBI by President Trump, and whether or not he thinks Trump may be compromised by the Russians.
Klamath Falls, OR— James Comey has accused Donald Trump of being “morally unfit” to be president and treating women like “meat” in his first television interview in support of his new book, A Higher Loyalty.
Comey further described Trump as a “stain” on everyone who worked for him, according to a transcript of a five-hour interview published by ABC and first obtained by the New York Times.
“Our president must embody respect and adhere to the values that are at the core of this country,” Comey told Stephanopoulos. “The most important being truth. This president is not able to do that. He is morally unfit to be president.”
Turning first to Trump’s defence of a white supremacists’ march, he said: “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.”
Replying to a question about whether Trump had committed an obstruction of justice, Comey said “it’s possible”.
“There’s certainly some evidence of obstruction of justice,” Comey said. But for the president to follow through on threats to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, Comey said, would “set off alarm bells that this is his most serious attack yet on the rule of law”.
Comey also described the “really weird” Trump Tower meeting in which he briefed the president-elect on the contents of an unverified intelligence document compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, including allegations that Trump had been in a Moscow hotel room in 2013 with urinating Russian prostitutes.
It was “unlikely” but “possible” that Russians had material with which to blackmail or otherwise compromise Trump, Comey said. “It is stunning, and I wish I wasn’t saying it, but it’s the truth.”
Comey described his intense discomfort at his first meeting with the president, at a reception for law enforcement officials at the White House two days after the election. Comey tried to camouflage himself in the drapery but was spotted by Trump and called across the room, video of which moment has been widely circulated.
Comey also detailed a one-on-one dinner with Trump in the Green room of the White House at which he said Trump asked for his pledge of loyalty – an account Trump has denied.
Trump made his pitch “after the salad but before the shrimp scampi”, Comey said. The former FBI director said – not wanting to give the president any signals and realizing the gravity of the moment – that he thought to himself: “Don’t you dare move.”
Comey described his reaction to finding out on TV, during a trip to California, that he had been fired less than halfway through his 10-year term.
“That’s crazy,” Comey remembered thinking. “How could that be?” Then Comey got on the FBI plane for the long flight back to Washington.
This kind of hedging gets confusing when you’re warning about existential dangers to democracy.
Except on one point, where Comey is unusually clear. Is Donald Trump unfit to be president?
“I don’t think he’s medically unfit to be president,” he said. “I think he’s morally unfit to be president. 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.”
Comey recalls in some detail Trump’s response when he briefed the president-elect on the Steele dossier, complete with its urine-soaked account of Russian kompromat: “He interrupted very defensively and started talking about it, you know, ‘Do I look like a guy who needs hookers?’”
Possibly maybe. More importantly, he now looks like a guy who needs an impeachment lawyer.
By James Garland of Tulelake News
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Email: tulelakenews@yahoo.com
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