Persecuting James Comey Could Make Him a Martyr

Sep 28, 2025 10:48 PM EDT, Sun

The MSNBC host said Trump should know better, given that during the 2024 presidential campaign his criminal charges helped rally his GOP base.

Sept. 26, 2025, 2:25 PM EDT By Allison Detzel

MSNBChost Joe Scarborough says Donald Trump’s effort to indict James Comey could turn out to be a huge political miscalculation.

On Thursday, a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted the former FBI director on two counts: making a false statement to Congress and obstruction of a congressional proceeding. The indictment came just days after the president publicly asked his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to prosecute his political enemies, including Comey.

Reacting to the indictment on Friday’s “Morning Joe,” Scarborough said the Justice Department’s move could backfire on the president: “You do this, you turn the person you hate into a martyr. You make them bigger than ever.”

He added: “That will be the first line in his obituary — that he was an FBI director, but that he became a martyr because a president said on social media to an attorney general, ‘Go and arrest this guy.’”

Scarborough also said that by indicting Comey, Trump could “unite” people behind the former FBI director.

“Now the world looks at James Comey, and they see that he’s a political and a legal martyr,” he said. “Nobody thought that way yesterday, but they sure as hell are going to think that way today and tomorrow and into the future.”

Scarborough said Trump should know better, given that during the 2024 presidential campaign his criminal charges helped rally his Republican base.

“Just go back to the 2024 campaign and look how the Republican Party was ready to move on to a certain Florida governor,” Scarborough said, referring to Gov. Ron DeSantis. “And then the indictments started coming down against Donald Trump, and that brought the Republican Party together behind him, and eventually led him to be elected the next president of the United States.”

You can watch Scarborough’s full remarks in the clip at the top of the page.

Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MSNBC Digital.

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