Former FBI Director James Comey is expected to present himself in federal court on Wednesday morning, taking the first step in a potentially lengthy process to fight charges brought by the Trump administration.
It’s a fate that some other foes of President Donald Trump will avoid, thanks to preemptive pardons signed by former President Joe Biden shortly before he left the White House.
Comey didn’t get one.
“I thought he tried to take care of anybody who was just doing their job,” said a Democrat close to Biden, who suggested the omission was now an oversight.
Three people familiar with the Biden pardon process told NOTUS that Comey was never seriously considered for a pardon. But two of those sources said that Comey did initially come up briefly in discussions by a tight group of high-ranking Biden aides after it was floated by an outside advocacy group.
“There was talk of him at one point,” said one source, who added that to their recollection, it never reached the then-president.
Comey’s team had no knowledge of the Biden administration discussing a potential pardon for him, according to a person familiar with the matter. The former FBI director has said he is innocent and called the charges politically motivated.
At the time of the preemptive pardons, Biden aides argued they were not an admission of guilt by the recipients, but instead a shield to protect high-profile Trump critics and Biden’s family members from retaliation. The list of pardons included Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gen. Mark Milley and members of Congress who served on the committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Biden’s pardon process was insular and involved a handful of longtime aides, two of the people familiar with the process to NOTUS, with one of them even recollecting that they handled their own paper.
“Tons of names” of individuals were discussed that could fit the bill of potential Trump targets, a source said. But despite any initial conversations, discussions around Comey did not advance.
Senior advisors “didn’t want to set up a precedent by assuming who Trump would have political retribution against,” a source told NOTUS. Another added that the process hinged on a broader question of who would have “political liability,” with the understanding that whoever was chosen could then have a target on their back.
Biden’s post-presidential office declined to comment.
Comey has long been one of Trump’s targets. As FBI director during Trump’s first presidential administration, Comey declined to drop a criminal investigation into former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, after what his personal notes described as being pressured by Trump to “letting Flynn go” and was then fired nearly halfway through his decade-long term set by Congress.
Trump has regularly called Comey a “leaker” and said he “should be tried for treason.”
“I think he’s a dirty cop,” Trump said Monday in the Oval Office. “He’s recognized by many people to be a dirty cop, dishonest guy.”
While Democrats have fumed publicly over Comey’s indictment, he is far from a beloved figure on the left. “I will never forgive what he did to Hillary,” said one former Democratic National Committee official, referencing when the former FBI directors reopened his agency’s probe into her private email server just days before the 2016 election.
Comey’s relationship with Biden and the established Democratic party was effectively nonexistent during Biden’s presidency, multiple people in both circles told NOTUS.
Comey endorsed Biden during the 2020 presidential election as a public rebuke of Trump. But some familiar with Biden said there was no relationship. A former aide who worked with Biden when he was vice president couldn’t recall any direct meetings between the two during those years. Public record shows a few instances of Biden and Comey the meeting, including outside of a now infamous Oval Office meeting on Jan. 5, 2017, attended by former President Barack Obama, Biden, Comey and other high-ranking national security officials.
Unlike Fauci, a beloved figure in the Democratic party, or the Jan. 6 committee, who are viewed as prosecuting the case against Trump, most sources who spoke to NOTUS said Comey would not be on the radar as needing protections.
“I thought what he did was politically stupid and that he didn’t follow the norms,” the former DNC official added. But they “never even thought that he did anything that needed to be pardoned.”
Biden faced criticism from his party over the pardons, which many deemed an unprecedented use of presidential power. But the criticism could soften as Trump said more of his opponents could face retribution through the federal justice system.
“I know that President Biden took very seriously Trump’s threats that he would carry out retribution against his perceived political enemies,” said Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and close friend of Biden’s. “The action to indict Jim Comey on what I think are very thin grounds suggests that President Biden was right.”
Sen. Peter Welch, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said presidents should not need to pardon staffers before they leave office due to fear of political persecutions.
“That’s a pretty low place to be,” he said.
Asked if he believed Comey should have gotten a preemptive pardon, Welch said, “If you have the rule of law, then you’re not anticipating — and shouldn’t have to ever anticipate — that somebody who’s done their job faithfully … is going to be prosecuted for political reasons by the incoming president. And if we get to that place, what happens? The outgoing president gives a blanket pardon to everybody who works for him? So no, I hold Trump responsible, not Biden.”