Former FBI Director James Comey James Brien ComeyDemocrats fear Russia interference could spoil bid to retake Senate Book: FBI sex crimes investigator helped trigger October 2016 public probe of Clinton emails Trump jabs at FBI director over testimony on Russia, antifa MORE is arguing the ongoing controversy that has entangled the top state lawmakers in Virginia is an opportunity to look at "much larger and more powerful symbols of that oppression" in the state.

Comey wrote an opinion piece about recent events in Virginia that was published in The Washington Post on Thursday.

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“Every Virginia leader is responsible for the racist symbols that still loom over our lives,” he wrote, zeroing in on Confederate statues and monuments.

“Expressing bipartisan horror at blackface photos is essential, but removing the statues would show all of America that Virginia really has changed,” Comey argued. “The statues were only about a certain kind of heritage, just as blackface was about a certain kind of storytelling. It was about hate, not history or art.”

Race has come to the forefront of Virginia politics over the past week after a photo from Gov. Ralph Northam's (D) medical school yearbook surfaced Friday, showing an image of a man in blackface and another dressed like a Ku Klux Klan member. Northam has denied being in the photo, but did admit to previously using blackface when he dressed up like Michael Jackson. Virginia's Attorney General Mark Herring (D) also admitted to using blackface as a teen on Wednesday.

Virginia lawmakers have publicly grappled with whether to remove Confederate statues in public places since a 2017 rally turned violent in Charlottesville, Va. The "Unite the Right" rally, in which many marchers expressed white supremacist views, was prompted by the planned removal of a Confederate monument.

Comey served as FBI director until he was fired by President Trump Donald John TrumpBubba Wallace to be driver of Michael Jordan, Denny Hamlin NASCAR team Graham: GOP will confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominee before the election Southwest Airlines, unions call for six-month extension of government aid MORE in 2017. Since then, he has strongly criticized the president. Comey lives in Virginia.