Van Jones: Comey no ‘Democrat favorite,’ but investigating him ‘totally insane’
CNN political commentator Van Jones on Wednesday said Democrats are not fans of former FBI Director James Comey but suggested that pursuing charges against him could backfire on the Trump administration.
In an interview on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront,” the former Obama administration adviser compared the situation to the short-lived suspension of late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel, who returned Tuesday to a record hike in ratings. Kimmel was taken off the air after Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr threatened his employer over comments Kimmel made in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
“I think that what you just saw with Jimmy Kimmel is that people are starting to defend the system,” Jones said, when prompted to expand on his position that a Comey prosecution could backfire.
“Look, I don’t like Comey. No Democrat likes Comey. We see Comey as a person who threw a banana peel in front of Hillary Clinton right before she could have stopped this whole thing back in 2016. So he’s no Democrat-favorite anything,” he continued.
“But the idea that you’re going to go rummaging back through the sock drawer, back to 2020, to find something somebody said to put them in prison is totally nuts. It’s insane. It’s the type of stuff that happens in a banana republic when you just go after your political enemies.”
The remarks come as the Justice Department is reportedly preparing to ask a grand jury to indict Comey on allegations that he lied to Congress nearly five years ago, just days before the statute of limitations is set to expire.
Comey, who was involved in the probe into possible Russian meddling in the 2016 election, was fired as FBI director under the first Trump administration and has since been a vocal critic of the president.
He also investigated 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and publicly announced months before the election that the FBI would not recommend criminal charges against her.
Less than two weeks before the election, Comey sent a letter to Congress about newly discovered emails, bringing the issue back into focus. Many Democrats blame the October letter for Clinton’s ultimate defeat.
Jones suggested on Wednesday that Trump “already botched the case” by railing against Comey and making it clear that he wants his former FBI director locked up.
“And the idea that this guy, Donald Trump, has tweeted out that he wants this person in jail kind of makes it look like, I don’t know, something called selective prosecution. He’s already botched the case,” Jones said.
“I think if you listen to people, today is the first day since November that you see people walking down the street smiling in New York City because Donald Trump stepped on a rake when it came to Jimmy Kimmel. And this will be the second rake.”