Comey is an experienced prosecutor who led the FBI for five years. He well understands the potential impact of such a book. His dismissal by Trump triggered the appointment of Mueller as special counsel by the Department of Justice and his firing is one of the events portrayed in the media as "obstruction of justice," a potentially impeachable offense. Under those circumstances, to have a major figure in the probe write a first-person account of these events, amid massive media attention, could be considered an effort to prejudice any future jurors and public opinion more generally.
The book itself, as well as the publicity campaign surrounding it, seems tailored to produce a subjective explosion from Trump in which he might make a damaging admission. Thus Comey appeared on ABC News's "Good Morning America" Thursday to give an advance peek at his hour-long Sunday night interview, and the segment showed him declaring that it was "possible" that a "pee tape" exists of Trump with the Moscow prostitutes. Trump's seemingly unhinged tweets came only minutes after Comey's appearance.
Also on Friday, in a move clearly directed against the Mueller investigation, Trump pardoned Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff of Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby was convicted in 2007 of lying to a grand jury and obstructing justice and sentenced to a $250,000 fine and 30 months in prison. George W. Bush commuted Libby's prison sentence before he left office, but he rejected repeated appeals from Cheney to pardon the vice president's former aide.
Libby was indicted, tried and convicted in connection with the leaking of the identity of a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame, in July of 2003. Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, a former US ambassador in Africa, published a column in the New York Times that month debunking Bush's claim that Saddam Hussein had purchased yellow cake uranium from Niger.
Shortly thereafter, syndicated columnist Robert Novak published a commentary outing Plame as a CIA operative, a breach of classified information. Comey, then deputy attorney general, appointed a special counsel to investigate the case, leading to Libby's indictment and conviction for perjury and obstruction.
Trump's pardon of Libby is a signal both to Mueller and to those targeted in his investigation that the president is prepared to pardon those who refuse to cooperate or give false information to prosecutors. That could potentially include former top aides such as fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to a perjury charge in a plea bargain with Mueller, and Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager who is fighting criminal charges brought by Mueller.
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