Comey says he ‘never’ considered asking Biden for preemptive pardon

Former FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that he “never” considered asking former President Biden for a preemptive pardon before President Trump returned to office last year and wouldn’t have accepted one if given.

“I don’t know,” Comey responded after CNN’s Kasie Hunt asked him whether he thought Biden might have granted him one if requested. “I wouldn’t have accepted it.”

Comey, who has been indicted by Trump’s Justice Department twice, defended his stance against accepting presidential pardons by pointing to a century-old Supreme Court precedent that doing so carried an “imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it.”

“It’s what consoled Gerald Ford when he pardoned Richard Nixon,” Comey said. “He carried a quote from the case in his wallet till the day he died, because it meant Nixon had admitted guilt.”

“And so, I’m not guilty. I am innocent, so I wouldn’t be accepting any pardons,” he added.

The U.S. Constitution gives a sitting president broad authority under Article 2 to grant pardons, clemency and commute individual........

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