WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey is throwing his support behind Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Comey tweeted Tuesday that he had voted in his first Democratic primary and said he agreed with Sen. Amy Klobuchar and believes the country needs a candidate “who cares about all Americans and will restore decency, dignity to the office.”
Comey says “there's a reason Trump fears" Biden and “roots" for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Andrew Bates, Director of Rapid Response for Joe Biden, commented on Comey's tweet and said, "Yes, customer service? I just received a package that I very much did not order. How can I return it, free of charge?"
He later tweeted and said the comment was meant to be a light-hearted joke, not a rejection of the endorsement.
Trump frequently targets Biden on Twitter, calling him “Sleepy Joe Biden” and recently mocking his debate performance. The president also tweets about Sanders, saying the Democrats are “staging a coup against Bernie!”
Comey has served in both Republican and Democratic administrations. He was fired as FBI director by Trump in May 2017 and has been a chief antagonist of the president's since then.
In August, Justice Department declined to prosecute former Comey over his handling of a series of memos he wrote that documented personal interactions with President Donald Trump.
The memos, some of which Justice Department officials later determined contained classified information, were written in the weeks and months before Comey's firing by Trump in May 2017. A week after he was fired, Comey authorized a friend to describe the contents of one of the memos to the news media. He has said his hope in having one of the memos become public was to spur the appointment of a special counsel to run the Justice Department's investigation into possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.
