MixedWashington PostComey explicitly frames the book as part of a larger project of rebuilding American institutions in Trump’s wake ... Saving Justice is more of a user’s manual for the justice system, whose independence and integrity Trump has done his best to undermine. It’s both an exploration of the values Trump has tried to pervert and an explanation of why those values matter ... Comey writes from a place of deep sincerity about the moral code that Justice Department employees must follow as people who are above politics and doing their best \'to find and tell the American people the truth.\' He wrote the book, he says, \'for ordinary citizens, not legal experts or historians, because all of us must know the Justice Department.\' ... Comey sticks to his wholesome Boy Scout persona ... Comey’s focus on Trump prevents him from examining the wider problems that led to public distrust in the justice system well before the current president entered the political scene ... The most glaring example is the book’s handling of race ... Seen in a certain light, Saving Justice is an argument for the continued moral relevance of law enforcement expertise as a guide in stitching institutions back together under the Biden presidency. Yet the inequities of the criminal justice system as it now exists, as opposed to the high-minded ideals that Comey treasures, make this a harder sell in the absence of sustained reflection on the system’s failures.
