Former FBI director James Comey has begun taking a more openly partisan stance in recent days, expressly advocating for the defeat of President Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign.
“All of us should use every breath we have to make sure the lying stops on Jan. 20, 2021,” Comey said during an MSNBC interview on Sunday. “I understand the Democrats have important debates now over who their candidate should be, but they have to win. They have to win,” he said.
Comey urged voters “not to become numb to it and to stand up and participate in holding [Trump] accountable to those norms,” calling the president a “threat” to the country’s values. “It’s not a Republican thing or it’s [not] a Democratic thing, it’s an American thing, because this is unacceptable behavior by the leader of our country,” he said.
Comey’s comments drew harsh criticism from FBI veteran and CNN law-enforcement analyst James A. Gagliano, who wrote that he has “long shed any pretense of objectivity since being fired by the president” and that his testimony to Congress will likely “inject even more doubts about the conduct of segments of our government once considered impartial and unbiased and duty-bound to follow the rule of law.”
Republican congressman Peter King said he once “had a regard” for Comey but now views him as a “partisan hack for the Democrats.”
“I had a regard for Jim Comey, but I tell you what he has done over the last year, the way he become really almost a partisan hack for the Democrats, is really unbecoming of a former FBI director, and I don’t blame the president for being outraged by all this,” King said.