Sunday during an interview that aired on a special broadcast of ABC’s “20/20,” former FBI Director James Comey was asked by the network’s George Stephanopoulos if he considered President Donald Trump, who fired Comey nearly a year ago, “unfit” for office.
Comey replied in the affirmative, but not for the reasons of mental incompetence that some Trump critics have offered.
“Yes,” he said when asked if Trump was unfit. “But not in the way I often hear people talk about it. I don’t buy this stuff about him being mentally incompetent or early stages of dementia. He strikes me as a person of above average intelligence who’s tracking conversations and knows what’s going on. I don’t think he’s medically unfit to be president. 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,” he added. “Our president must embody respect, and adhere to the values that are at the core of this country. The most important being truth. This president is not able to do that. He is morally unfit to be president.”
Comey went on to resist calling for Trump’s impeachment because he argued it would let Americans “off the hook” for electing him president.
Comey also denied he had fallen “in love” with his own virtue.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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