Former FBI Director James Comey writes in his new book "Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency, and Trust" that President Donald Trump should not be prosecuted after he leaves office, no matter the amount of evidence against him.
The next attorney general in Joe Biden's administration should not "pursue a criminal investigation of Donald Trump no matter how compelling the roadmap left" by former special counsel Robert Mueller or "how powerful the evidence strewn across his history of porn stars and financial fraud," Comey writes, according to The Guardian.
"Although those cases might be righteous in a vacuum, the mission of the next attorney general must be fostering the trust of the American people," the former FBI chief continues in the book set to be published on Jan. 12.
Trump fired Comey in May 2017, and soon after, Mueller was appointed to oversee the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and related issues.
Biden's attorney general must lift the Justice Department "above the partisan scrum," Comey says, slamming William Barr, Trump's second attorney general, for his supposed impartiality. The president-elect has not yet named his pick for the position, but former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former Alabama Sen. Doug Jones are frontrunners, The Guardian reports.
Comey doubts whether Biden should pardon Trump, as President Gerald Ford did for President Richard Nixon after his resignation. A pardon "might not be enough accountability in Trump's case. Or it may be, especially if local prosecutors in New York charge Trump for a legacy of financial fraud," Comey writes.
"Whether or not our next president pardons Donald Trump, and whether or not the Department of Justice pursues him, the American people should be told why."