"...he's morally Unfit to be President," is What Former FBI Director James Comey said about Trump

Former FBI Director James Comey has blasted President Donald Trump as unfit for the office.

'I think he's morally unfit to be president,' Comey told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview that aired on Sunday night.

'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.

'And that's not a policy statement. Again, I don't care what your views are on guns or immigration or taxes.'

Comey stressed that he did not believe Trump was mentally unfit for the presidency, even complimenting Trump in a rare moment of praise.

'He strikes me as a person of above average intelligence who's tracking conversations and knows what's going on,' said Comey. But he said Trump's moral qualifications were lacking.

'There's something more important than that that should unite all of us, and that is our president must embody respect and adhere to the values that are at the core of this country,' Comey said.

'The most important being truth. This president is not able to do that. He is morally unfit to be president.'

Stephanopoulos asked if it was possible that the Russians 'have something on Donald Trump'.

'I think it's possible. I don't know. These are more words I never thought I'd utter about a president of the United States, but it's possible,' Comey replied.

'You can't say for certain that the president of the United States is not compromised by the Russians?' pressed Stephanopoulos.

'It is stunning and I wish I wasn't saying it, but it's just - it's the truth. I cannot say that,' Comey replied. 'It always struck me and still strikes me as unlikely, and I woulda' been able to say with high confidence about any other president I dealt with, but I can't. It's possible.'

Comey spoke out two days before the release of his memoir, A Higher Loyalty.

Despite his misgivings, Comey said he would not be in favor of impeaching Trump.

'I hope not because I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they're duty bound to do directly,' Comey said. 'People in this country need to stand up and go to the voting booth and vote their values.'

Comey spoke in detail about his uncomfortable first meeting with Trump in Trump Tower in January 2017, in which he delicately informed the then President-elect of the allegations in Christopher Steele's dossier, which claimed that Trump met with prostitutes in a Moscow hotel in 2013.

'I did not go into the business about-- people peeing on each other, I just thought it was a weird enough experience for me to be talking to the incoming president of the United States about prostitutes in a hotel in Moscow. And so I left that part out,' Comey said, referring to the most salacious pieces of the unverified allegations.

According to Comey, Trump's immediate response was: ''Do I look like a guy who needs hookers?'

After the Steele dossier, which had been funded by Democrats during the campaign, was published by Buzzfeed days later, Comey spoke with Trump about the matter again by phone.

Comey recalls Trump launching unprompted into an explanation 'that he'd never stayed overnight at the hotel, he'd just changed clothes there and went to the Miss Universe pageant.'

'I don't know whether any of this true, but this is what he said,' said Comey. 'And then he said, "Another reason you know it's not true is I'm a germaphobe. There's no way I'd let people pee on each other around me." And that me caught me so much by surprise I actually let out an audible laugh and-- 'cause it was just one of those-- I was startled by it.'

A a dinner in the White House residence on January 27, 2017, Trump again brought up the subject of the Moscow allegations unprompted, said Comey.

'And then he says-- something that distracted me. 'Cause he said, you know, "If there's even a 1 percent chance my wife thinks that's true, that's terrible",' Comey recalled.

'And I-- and I remember thinking, "How could your wife think there's a 1 percent chance you were with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow?" I'm a flawed human being, but there is literally zero chance that my wife would think that was true. So what kind of marriage to what kind of man does your wife think there's only a 99 percent chance you didn't do that?' said Comey.

'When he started talking about it, "I may order you to investigate that", I said, "Sir, that's up to you. But you'd want to be careful about that, because it might create a narrative that we're investigating you personally. And second, it's very difficult to prove something didn't happen."'

Hours before the interview aired, Trump launched into a preemptive tirade on Twitter berating Trump.

'Slippery James Comey, a man who always ends up badly and out of whack (he is not smart!), will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history, by far!' Trump said at one point.

'I never asked Comey for Personal Loyalty,' Trump said, disputing one of Comey's claims. 'I hardly even knew this guy. Just another of his many lies. His "memos" are self serving and FAKE!'

This article has been adapted from its original source.