James Comey Reverses Opposition to Impeaching Trump: Congress Can’t Uphold Oaths ‘Without Acting’

It would appear that former FBI Director James Comey is changing his mind on impeachment, now that the memo has been released on President Donald Trump’s conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Before Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden first came to light, Comey gave an interview last week to KCRA where he expressed hope that Trump won’t be removed from office through impeachment. While Comey said that Robert Mueller’s report revealed “deeply concerning” conduct by the president, voting Trump out would be preferable because impeachment would mean “the American people would be let off the hook.”

“A lot of his supporters would think some kind of coup had taken place,” said Comey. “We need to take responsibility for this and vote next November, and show we have a certain set of values and we insist that our leaders reflect those values. We need an inflection point. An impeachment would deprive us of that, and we need to show what we stand for.”

Today, Comey had some new thoughts about impeachment in light of the memorandum showing Trump urging Zelensky multiple times to partner with Attorney General Bill Barr and Rudy Giuliani to investigate the Biden family. Now Comey’s position is that “We may now be at the point where members of the House and Senate can’t uphold their own oaths to support and defend the Constitution without acting.”

Some media are quoting me from last week about my hope that America will remove Donald Trump by an election, not Impeachment. But we may now be at the point where members of the House and Senate can’t uphold their own oaths to support and defend the Constitution without acting.

— James Comey (@Comey) September 25, 2019