Former FBI director James Comey just can’t seem to stop saying things people hate.
During an interview with BBC Newsnight this week, the former employee of president Donald Trump’s administration suggested that president-elect Joe Biden should consider pardoning Trump.
“I don’t know, he should consider it,” Comey said. “Donald Trump, he’s not a genius, but he might figure out that if he accepts a pardon, that’s an admission of guilt, the United States Supreme Court has said, so I don’t know that he would accept a pardon.”
Comey argued that a pardon from Biden would work to heal the country and get Americans “to a place where we can focus on things that are going to matter over the next four years.”
Comey also told the BBC that he does believe Trump belongs “in jail,” but draws the line at prosecuting a former president because that’s not “in the best interest of the entire nation.”
“I think the wiser decision would be not to pursue him, but whatever you do, the next president, Joe Biden, should explain it to the American people. Be transparent about why you’re doing what you’re doing,” he told the network.
Comey’s remarks come on the heels of The Guardian reporting on an early copy of his new book, Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency and Trust.
The United States’ next attorney general under Biden should not “pursue a criminal investigation of Donald Trump,” Comey reportedly wrote in the book, “no matter how compelling the roadmap left” by special counsel Robert Mueller or “how powerful the evidence strewn across his history of porn stars and financial fraud.”
“Although those cases might be righteous in a vacuum,” Comey wrote, “the mission of the next attorney general must be fostering the trust of the American people.”
Those remarks were later assailed on social media. And in the same way, Comey’s comments to the BBC were also shredded on Twitter: