National

Fired FBI Director James Comey considered hiding citizenship on visit to Ireland

WASHINGTON – Former FBI director James Comey is “ashamed” and “horrified” at the way the United States government has separated immigrant children from their families and considered concealing his citizenship when he arrived in Ireland, according an Irish media report.

Comey, who was fired by President Donald Trump last year, is in Ireland to promote his book, “A Higher Loyalty.”

"I am ashamed of the way my country has acted with respect of those children," Comey said Friday in Dublin, according to the Irish Times. "I am disgusted, I am horrified, I am embarrassed, I'm ashamed."

Comey added, “My wife and I were joking, not really joking; we wanted to tell the people on the customs line coming here that we were Canadian. And we were joking but it’s funny because it reveals a truth: I’m ashamed.”

Comey has engaged in a feud with Trump whom he called "morally unfit to be president," in an April interview published by USA TODAY. Trump regularly returns the insult volley, recently calling him "Slippery James Comey" on Twitter and pointing to a recent report that criticized Comey's handling of the 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails.

Comey's comments Friday in Ireland echoed those he made earlier in the week in England when he also criticized the immigration policy that resulted in about 2,300 immigrant children separated from their families at the border.

"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 told The Guardian. "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."

In Ireland, Comey took another swipe at Trump and said U.S. government institutions are stout enough to withstand Trump.

“The rule of law is the spine," Comey said. "No president serves long enough to screw that up. Donald Trump, even if he were competent, he could not screw that up."