Former FBI Director James Comey said it was “deeply disturbing” when the people who attended President Trump’s event to mark his impeachment victory applauded.
After being acquitted on both articles of impeachment, Trump celebrated on Thursday with his legal defense team, congressional supporters, and members of his administration at an event in the East Room of the White House. During an hourlong speech, flush with cheers from the audience, the president aired his grievances with Democrats and other rivals, including Comey.
Comey responded on Friday in a Washington Post opinion piece, “James Comey: As usual, Trump called me a sleaze. But the audience reaction to his rant was more upsetting.”
“The important thing was what happened in the audience, where there were plenty of intelligent people of deep commitment to religious principle,” Comey wrote. “They laughed and smiled and clapped as a president of the United States lied, bullied, cursed, and belittled the faith of other leaders. That was the deeply disturbing part of the East Room moment and should challenge us all.”
He added, “How it is possible that they didn’t get up and walk out — that they seemed to participate actively in something they should know was deeply wrong? How could they smile and laugh? Because they are people. And, like all people, they too easily surrender their individual moral authority to a group where it can be hijacked by the loudest, harshest voice.”
The former FBI director, who was fired by Trump in May 2017, mentioned how the men in his dormitory his freshman year of college bullied one of the other residents and how Comey himself partook in the hazing. Comey explained that, despite knowing it was wrong, he “surrendered to the laughter and the camaraderie of the group.”
Comey accused Trump of having the “gift” of being able “to play on human weakness” in a way that allows for “good, principled people” to “go along” with it.
Those in attendance for Trump’s post-impeachment event included Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from Kentucky, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley. Attorney General William Barr, who is overseeing the review of the FBI counterintelligence investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign that Comey oversaw for a time, was also in attendance.
