Launching a criminal impeachment case against the outgoing US President could result in several more years of the "Donald Trump show," giving him the attention he so badly craves, says former FBI chief James Comey.
This would potentially overshadow efforts by incoming President Joe Biden to "unite America" and is "probably what [Trump] would want the most," claimed Comey, who was controversially booted out by the POTUS in 2017.
In a Sky News interview, the ex-FBI chief voiced the opinion that Donald Trump craves attention like a toddler.
"I have never seen an adult with a greater hunger for affirmation than Donald Trump. I've seen it in two-year-olds and three-year-olds. Affirmation is like air, he needs it constantly,” insisted Comey, whose book, Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency and Trust, was published on 12 January.
Comey slammed the president as "the dictionary definition of a demagogue," who "aimed not just to lie to people but really to destroy the notion that the truth exists."
"There's a menace to him in private that you don't pick up in public… But I have felt it sitting close to him, that constantly reminded me of a mob boss because I've known mob bosses and helped put them in jail. That menace coupled with that hunger for affirmation is a really dangerous recipe," he said in the interview.
‘Letter 'I' Tattooed’
Weighing in on the controversy around the twice-impeached POTUS, Comey added that Trump is "constitutionally immune" from prosecution as president, but that this will end when Joe Biden assumes office on 20 January.
This raises the possibility of Donald Trump being charged in the future if crimes were committed before or during his term.
Comey supported the impeachment of Trump on 13 January for “incitement of insurrection” in the wake of the riots that took place at the Capitol on 6 January, when Congress convened to certify the election win of Democrat Biden.
"I don't think that anybody can disagree, there has to be the letter 'I' tattooed on him again, and ideally I'd like to see him convicted by the US Senate and barred from ever holding public office again," Comey said.
The one-time FBI director was dismissed by the president after the agency decided to investigate the Democrats' claims that Russia had meddled in Trump’s campaign to propel him towards winning the 2016 election. The Department of Justice's independent probe, led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, subsequently failed to find any evidence though.
Although Trump has just a few days left before Joe Biden's inauguration, Comey warned that the potential danger of violence from "armed, disturbed people" on Inauguration Day remains, while people involved in the previous chaos must be dealt with "swiftly and severely."
Comey, who served as the seventh director of the FBI from 2013 until 9 May 2017, recently released his new book, Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency, and Trust, described as a "clarion call for a return to fairness and equity in the law," in follow up to A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, published in 2018.