James Comey said on Wednesday that he no longer considers himself a member of the Grand Old Party. In a moment of candor, the former FBI director told ABC News that he felt abandoned by the Republican party, which has been actively campaigning against his new memoir.
The director pointedly said "No," when asked if he still considered himself a member of the conservative group, adding that the party has "left" him and "many others."
He made the declaration while appearing on ABC News podcast "Start Here." "I think they've lost their way and I can't be associated with it," he said. Comey later added that the problems stem from what he sees as the party's uncritical support for President Donald Trump.
"The Republican Party, as near as I can tell, reflects now entirely Donald Trump's values," Comey said. "It doesn't reflect values at all. It's transactional, it's ego-driven, it's in service to his ego."
In Comey's memoir A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, the former FBI director writes openly about his disdain for the president, who fired him in May. In one excerpt, Comey compares the blustery business mogul to a mafia king. He also wrote that Trump is "morally unfit" to occupy the Oval Office and called him a "serial liar."
"The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths," Comey writes. "The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and above the truth."
As Newsweek previously reported, the Republican National Committee has actively campaigned against Comey's book, going so far as to debut a website with the IP address "LyinComey.com," a sobriquet inspired by Trump's fiery Twitter rhetoric. The homepage of the site accuses Comey of egotism and features blurbs from some of his detractors.
"James Comey wants to portray himself as a non-partisan, by-the-book Boy Scout rather than a politically motivated Washington insider," the website states. A compilation of recycled news footage features prominent Democrats criticizing Comey, including Senators Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, as well as Representative Nancy Pelosi.
Undeterred, the suddenly-candid Comey has been on a media tour to promote his book, which was released on April 17.
Trump, meanwhile, has responded in predictable fashion, blasting the former FBI director as a "slime ball" and a "leaker."
