Comey’s take on Trump’s family-separation policy: ‘What kind of people are we?’

Former FBI Director James Comey this week criticized President Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy that separated families at the border, saying that the images of children being ripped from their parents led him to ask, “What kind of people are we?”

Comey, who was fired by Trump in May 2017, said in an interview with The Guardian published Thursday that the president is doing considerable damage to the U.S. He did not hold back when discussing the administration’s family separation policy at the U.S.-Mexico border that Trump ended on Wednesday after significant backlash from Republican and Democratic lawmakers.

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“When you stare at children crying, being taken away from their mothers, it forces your eyes above statutes and numbers, to: ‘What kind of people are we, for God’s sakes?’” Comey said. “That’s a lifting of the national eyes that is powerful and potentially the kind of inflection point that I’m talking about. That’s the kind of thing that awakens the giant.”

Comey said the images of children at the border reminded him not only of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, but also of black children being bitten by police dogs in Birmingham, Ala., in the 1960s.

He also talked about how he frequently thinks about how his decisions in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election in the U.S. may have been a reason why Trump was elected. He said many people approach him about the actions he made while leading the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server, and that it is “very painful.”

Comey has come under renewed scrutiny for the role he played at the FBI following Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report last week that found Comey broke with Justice Department norms in the agency’s investigation of Clinton leading up to the 2016 election. But the report found no evidence of political bias by Comey or any FBI agents.