(CNN)Former FBI Director James Comey said that although Donald Trump is "morally unfit" to be president, it's not grounds to be removed from office through the impeachment process.
When asked in an exclusive interview with ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos if he believes Trump should be impeached, Comey answered, "I hope not."
He went on to say, "Because I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they're duty bound to do directly."
"People in this country need to stand up and go to the voting booth and vote their values," Comey said. "And so impeachment, in a way, would short circuit that."
Comey sat down with Stephanopoulos for his first television interview since being fired by Trump last year to promote his upcoming book, "A Higher Loyalty."
The former FBI chief told ABC News that Trump strikes him as a "person of above average intelligence."
"I don't think he's medically unfit to be president. I think he's morally unfit to be president," Comey said.
"A person who sees moral equivalence in Charlottesville, who talks about and treats women like they're pieces of meat, who lies constantly about matters big and small and insists the American people believe it, that person's not fit to be president of the United States on moral grounds," Comey said.
In the lead up to Comey's interview, Trump has called Comey an "untruthful slime ball" and said that it was his "great honor" to fire Comey as FBI director.
