FIVE NOTABLE MOMENTS FROM JAMES COMEY’S HOUR-LONG TV INTERVIEW.
FIVE TAKEAWAYS FROM THE COMEY INTERVIEW
By the time ABC aired an hour-long interview with James Comey on Sunday night, his feelings on U.S. President Donald Trump were clear: that he was volatile, immoral, fixated on allegations made against him, akin to a mob boss.
When excerpts from Comey’s forthcoming memoir emerged last week, Trump pounced, labelling Comey “weak” and an “untruthful slime ball.” He later suggested Comey deserved jail time.
The disclosures in the book, many of which were amplified in extraordinary detail in Sunday’s interview, were a stunning assault on a sitting president by a former high-ranking law enforcement official.
The ABC interview, conducted by anchor George Stephanopoulos and filmed at Comey’s Virginia home, was the first major interview the former FBI director has granted since his firing last May.
The book, which is to be released Tuesday, has remained atop Amazon’s best-seller list for weeks, and the interview was the beginning of an extensive media and speaking tour.
Here are five notable moments from Sunday’s program.
COMEY SAYS A PAST MEETING WITH TRUMP COULD BE EVIDENCE OF OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE
Comey says that Trump asked him to drop the FBI’s investigation of Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, after a White House meeting with Trump and other senior officials. At the end of the meeting, Comey says, the president asked everyone in the room to leave, save for Comey.
The request, Comey recalled in the interview, was too brazen to be spontaneous.
“Why am I alone if he doesn’t know the nature of the request?” Comey said.
Stephanopoulos pointed out that Trump denied he had made the request.
“Yeah, well, what am I going to do? He did,” Comey said flatly.
Stephanopoulos asked if that scene in the White House constituted obstruction of justice.
“Possibly,” Comey said. “I mean, it’s certainly some evidence of obstruction of justice.”
HE THOUGHT HIS FIRING WAS A ‘CRAZY’ MOVE BY TRUMP
“That makes no sense at all,” Comey recalled in the Sunday interview of his reaction to the news of his firing last May.
“I thought, ‘It’s crazy to fire me.’ I’m leading the investigation of Russian influence.”
When he saw news the same week that Trump had met with Russian officials in the Oval Office and called Comey a “nut job,” Comey said he saw right through it.
“Wow, was my reaction,” he said.
“First of all, what are the Russians doing in the Oval Office? One, as a counter-intelligence person, I’m thinking, ‘That’s crazy,’ without any Americans being present, one. And, two, the pretence is melting away.”
HE SAID FIRING ROBERT MUELLER WOULD BE ‘THE MOST SERIOUS ATTACK YET ON THE RULE OF LAW.’
Stephanopoulos asked Comey what he would think if Trump were to fire the special counsel, Mueller.
“It would I hope set off alarm bells that this is his most serious attack yet on the rule of law,” Comey said. “That is higher than all the normal fights about policy.”
Toward the end of Sunday’s broadcast, Stephanopoulos said it was stunning that Comey could not rule out the possibility that Russia has compromising material on the president.
“It is stunning, and I wish I wasn’t saying it, but it’s just, it’s the truth,” Comey said.
HE STANDS BY HIS HANDLING OF THE INVESTIGATION INTO HILLARY CLINTON’S EMAIL SERVER
Comey used several portions of the interview to defend his decisions about revealing the closing and reopening of the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server.
Having announced an end to the inquiry in July 2016, Comey revealed on Oct. 28, just days before the election, that the FBI was again investigating the case.
Those days leading up to the election “sucked,” Comey said. “I walked around vaguely sick to my stomach, feeling beaten down.”
Asked to address the fierce criticism he received for the move, Comey said Americans would benefit from stepping into his shoes and considering the options he had.
“What I would hope is that they would, by reading the book, come with me to Oct. 28. Come with me, and sit there with me,” he said.
Would he have still sent the letter, Stephanopoulos asked, if he knew it would get Trump elected? Comey said he would have.
“If I ever start considering whose political fortunes will be affected by a decision, we’re done,” Comey said of the FBI. “We’re just another player in the tribal battle.”
HE SAID TRUMP WAS ‘MORALLY UNFIT’ TO BE PRESIDENT
Asked if he believes Trump is unfit for office, Comey was quick to say yes, but not for reasons of his mental state.
Instead, Comey called Trump “morally unfit.” “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 said.