President Donald Trump should be convicted by the Senate but not prosecuted for inciting Capitol rioters, former FBI Director James Comey said on Sunday, adding that it would give America room to “cure” .
“The country would be better off if we did not give him the platform for a prosecution for the next three years,” Comey told British broadcaster Sky News, which is like NBC News, owned by Comcast Corp.
“Rather turn off the camera lights,” said Comey, who was fired by Trump in 2017 from his role as FBI director while investigating the possible collusion of the president’s presidency in 2016 with Russia.
“I would like to see some lights go out and he can stand on the front lawn at Mar-a-Lago and scream at cars in his bathrobe, and none of us will hear it,” he said.
Trump became the first U.S. president to be arrested twice last week for his role in inciting a violent crowd of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
The Senate will now decide whether Trump should be convicted of inciting indictment, and there is also discussion of possible criminal charges stemming from the same behavior after he left office.
Comey, 60, said he would like to see Trump convicted by the Senate and banned from ever holding public office again, but the former FBI chief said he was concerned that Biden’s prosecution efforts to reunite the nation will hamper.
“The country needs to find a way to heal itself and the new president needs the opportunity to lead and heal us – literally and spiritually,” Comey said. “And it will be much, much harder if the Donald Trump show is on our television screens every day in our country’s capital.”
He said the trial would give Trump the attention he longed for.
“It will take three or four years,” Comey said. “How does Joe Biden do what our country should do in that area?”
The decision to prosecute a former president should, according to NBC News legal analyst Danny Cevallos, be a balancing act between the strength of the criminal case and the social and politically divisive consequences of a trial.
“If the case against Trump for incitement was a slam dunk, the benefit of prosecution could outweigh the potential damage to the republic,” Cevallos said in response to Comey’s comments. “The prosecutor’s case is not a slam dunk. Trump has tremendous freedom of speech and other defense against incitement. ”
Historically, America has faced a similar dilemma, adding that President Gerald Ford has issued a controversial pardon for former President Richard Nixon, which many believe has cost Ford his popularity and a longer term as president. has.
“We will never know, but a Nixon prosecution has prolonged the country’s pain even longer – rather than resolved it,” he added.
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The attack on the Capitol, the seat of American democracy, reverberated across the country, causing political upheaval a few days before Joe Biden came to power and keeping authorities across the country informed of more violence before Biden’s inauguration on January 20th.
Comey said he was optimistic the threat of new violence would be neutralized, but said it should be taken very seriously by law enforcement.
He said he was “sick” by the attack on the Capitol and the failure to defend the building.
“It makes me bitter and angry,” Comey said, adding, “It will be important for our country to understand the failure.”
