Comey: Trump ‘begging’ for jail sentence

Former FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday that former President Trump is “begging” to be sentenced to jail in his hush money case given his repeated criticism of the court’s process and judge.

Comey, speaking on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins,” said while he would typically believe Trump’s charges would not constitute a jail sentence, he’s not sure in the former president’s case.

“I would ordinarily say it’s unlikely, in a white-collar offense of this sort. But this is a defendant who’s begging for a jail term by taking a flamethrower not just to the judge, but to the entire process and the jury,” Comey said Tuesday.

“A judge will take that very seriously into consideration, in deciding whether to deter this person, and to send a message, more broadly, he needs to spend some time behind bars.”

The former president was found guilty last week on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York, becoming the first former U.S. president to become a convicted felon. The charges were rooted in reimbursements made to Trump’s onetime fixer and attorney, Michael Cohen, for a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels.

Trump is slated to be sentenced on July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. Trump’s legal team has vowed to appeal the case, but proceedings are currently expected to move forward as scheduled — and the Republican National Committee has said it is planning for the possibility of Trump speaking from jail.

Trump’s team has already suggested it does not believe the former president should be incarcerated, which would be a rare punishment for a first-time offender convicted of Trump’s charges in New York.

Throughout the trial, Trump repeatedly made comments about the court staff, including Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), arguing to reporters, on social media and in campaign speeches that the charges were politically motivated.

At one point before the trial began, Trump lashed out against Merchan and his daughter, Loren, who was a consultant for a firm representing several high-profile Democratic politicians.

Merchan, in turn, imposed a gag order that prohibited the former president from publicly commenting on witnesses, prosecutors, court staff or the judge’s family in the case, but did not bar him from directly attacking Merchan or Bragg. Merchan found Trump then violated the gag order 10 times and fined him $10,000 as a result.

When asked if he thinks Merchan will take Trump’s behavior or past comments into consideration during sentencing, Comey said, “I do, as well as him having to find that the defendant had acted in contempt of the court’s orders, on multiple occasions.”

“All of that will be part of the picture that the judge looks at, to decide whether a message needs to be sent that involves jail,” he added.

Trump, who is the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, said over the weekend he would be “OK” with either house arrest or jail time when asked about the prospect.

“I’m not sure the public would stand for it,” Trump said of such a sentence in a Sunday interview with Fox News. “I think it’d be tough for the public to take. At a certain point, there’s a breaking point.”

Comey reflected Tuesday on the experience of watching the nation’s Republican presumptive presidential nominee become a convicted felon.

“If you put it in a novel — and I’m here, because I just wrote a novel — your editor would strike it out, and say, ‘That’s just crazy. That would never happen,'” he said.

“We’re living in a really strange time. It must be a weird time to be a conspiracy theorist and flip on Fox News, and you hear these people screaming at the attorney general about weaponizing. And the next story is about the department prosecuting the president’s son, for heaven’s sakes,” in reference to the charges facing Hunter Biden.

“So, we live in a strange time. But it’s one where people have to understand what’s at stake. Donald Trump cannot return to that Oval Office,” he added.