Former FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that former President Donald Trump was an “existential threat” to the country.
He also called the Republican Party a cult.
Cooper asked, “Given the career you have had in the FBI, when you see the former president, now the frontrunner again for the Republican nomination, how big a threat is that?”
Comey said, “A very serious threat to the rule of law, almost an existential threat if he were to become president again. He has tried to take a flamethrower to the FBI, to the Department of Justice to stop them investigating.”
Cooper said, “You believe Donald Trump is an existential threat to the rule of law?”
Comey said, “I do, yes. Were he to become president again, I don’t think America has ever seen and is ready for what he would try and do to the system of justice.”
Cooper said, “The Justice Department has sent a very strong message about what happened on January 6 with their prosecutions, their investigations and prosecutions of some of those responsible. When you hear the former president talking about pardoning, you hear Ron DeSantis talking about looking at pardons, what do you think?”
Comey said, “It’s disgusting. It’s an attack on the rule of law. If anything in this country people should be able to agree on, we should send a message, never again. You can’t intervene by force. You can protest, you can march, you can do what you want, but don’t you dare. That’s the message that has to be sent with those prosecutions. And the idea of undercutting that message makes no sense at all.”
Cooper said, “Many in the House in Congress say that the FBI has been ‘weaponized,’ that it’s going after conservatives, that it’s politicized. Do you believe any of that is true?”
Comey said, “I don’t believe any of it is true. I never would have expected it. All of us should become more familiar with the way a cult operates in the recent years. So it makes sense in the light of that phenomenon. But I never would have anticipated it years ago.”
Cooper asked, “So what happens if the Republican Party, which has a long, proud history, if many of its members are talking about, you know, prosecuting the director of the FBI, defunding the FBI — some of them are talking about defunding the FBI. What does that say about the Republican Party?”
Comey said, “I don’t know what the Republican Party is anymore. And I don’t know what its future. I think the American people need to hand it, especially the presidential level, a series of losses until they figure out who they want to be. Because they’re not a party that is consistent with the values of the country.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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