Not Comey. In this committee session he bluntly said torture is not effective and that his personal standard for what constitutes torture is more stringent than that in the statutes.
> if extreme techniques were viewed as likely to result in useful information
He's not arguing that torture is wrong, he's arguing that torture doesn't work.
Maybe listen/read to his full response first?
But that just calls into question a person's character and it's going to be impossible to dig down and find a satisfying answer for everyone. So I'm not sure how fruitful this is.
Right, he wouldn't use it because he doesn't believe it's effective. The GP is suggesting that if it were effective and legal, do you really believe he would refrain from doing it on moral grounds? It's the prerogative of the FBI to pursue cases using essentially all effective legal means, and it's no surprise to hear they are lobbying for more tools to become legal.
Paraphrasing here but I think his definition was along the lines of "anything that purposefully causes physical harm or injury to a person", and when asked whether bad prison food counts, he said that in his eyes for his team that is not something he would condone. This was a pretty straightforward response; the man at least talks the good talk on torture.