Former diplomat John Feeley continued his clarification tour about why he resigned as U.S. ambassador to Panama, putting it squarely on President Donald Trump's refusal to condemn white nationalists in the wake of the Charlottesville riots.
Feeley, whose last day was Friday, made the comments Monday on CNN's "New Day" morning program, saying that the riots in Virginia "shook me deeply."
"We had overcome, in the United States, significant structural racism. And when the president failed to condemn, outright and fully, those organizers … I knew I would not be able to continue serving as his personal representative," Feeley said on CNN.
Feeley informed the White House in late December that he would be resigning. Feeley lamented that excerpts of his resignation letter were leaked, leading to speculation that he resigned over Trump's "sh**hole" comments about African countries and Haiti.
Not so, Feeley wrote in a column for The Washington Post on Friday, his last day.
Feeley said he took that time since August to ensure an "orderly transition" at the embassy so that he wouldn't "leave a lot of people in the breach."
But it was the aftermath of that tragic day in Charlottesville that ended it for Feeley.
"I just couldn't continue to say 'I think the president's words speak for themselves,'" Feeley said on CNN. "That's not being his personal representative. That's not being his ambassador and I felt that I was honor-bound to resign."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.