The president quickly touted Thursday’s charges against Comey, whom he has long considered an arch-nemesis, for allegedly lying to Congress and obstruction related to testimony in 2020. The indictment was secured by a prosecutor who just days earlier Trump had handpicked for her job while publicly pressuring the US attorney general to quickly take legal action against Comey and others.
“He has been so bad for our Country, for so long, and is now at the beginning of being held responsible for his crimes against our Nation,” Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social after the indictment was announced.
The case against Comey, whose attorney denies the charges and vows to fight them, isn’t expected to play out in court for weeks. Still, the speed with which prosecutors secured a criminal indictment after Trump urged action is ricocheting across Washington and beyond.
Trump made clear his desire for the Justice Department to quickly prosecute Comey in a social media post last Saturday. The president urged Attorney General
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” he said in the post that also referred to Trump previously being impeached and indicted. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
Prosecutors faced a looming deadline of next week to bring charges against Comey over his 2020 testimony. Meanwhile, James and Schiff are facing federal probes over allegations that they may have committed mortgage fraud stemming from claims by
The case against James is being handled by the same US attorney’s office that brought the charges against Comey. Lindsey Halligan took over Monday as head of the US attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia on an interim basis.
Previously, Halligan was a senior aide at the White House and worked on an initiative to review exhibits at the Smithsonian’s museums to ensure that they reflect American “excellence” as laid out in an executive order. She also represented Trump against charges of mishandling classified documents after his first term and was previously an insurance lawyer in Florida.
Halligan got the job after Erik Siebert, who had been heading the office, resigned amid pressure by Trump officials to charge James. Siebert’s office told the officials that it hadn’t found sufficient evidence to charge James, Bloomberg News
Comey Charges
If convicted, Comey could face up to five years in prison, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Comey said he is “not afraid” in a video posted on Instagram on Thursday.
“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way,” he said. His lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, said in an emailed statement, that Comey “ denies the charges filed today in their entirety” and will fight them in court.
Maurene Comey, the former FBI director’s daughter, was ousted in July from her job as a federal prosecutor in New York. At the time she said in a message to office colleagues that she “was summarily fired via memo from Main Justice that did not give a reason for my termination.”
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James Comey served as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2013 until he was fired by Trump in 2017. Trump ousted Comey while he was overseeing an investigation into whether Trump or anyone associated with his presidential campaign conspired with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
The Russia investigation was taken over by Special Counsel Robert Mueller after Comey left and haunted Trump for years before it was closed without any charges against him.
Testimony
Trump supporters have seized on testimony Comey gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2020, alleging that he committed perjury.
In the exchange, Republican Senator
Cruz pointed to a claim by made by Andrew McCabe, Comey’s then deputy, that the former FBI director had authorized a leak to the Wall Street Journal. The senator said that McCabe’s account conflicted with previous testimony by Comey.
“Now, what Mr. McCabe is saying and what you testified to this committee cannot both be true; one or the other is false. Who’s telling the truth?” Cruz said.
“I can only speak to my testimony,” Comey responded, saying that he stood by “the testimony you summarized that I gave in May of 2017.”
Click here for video of the exchange in the 2020 hearing
The Justice Department’s Inspector General issued a report in February 2018 and concluded that Comey didn’t authorize the leak. The report found that McCabe had authorized it for personal reasons.
McCabe was fired in 2018 by Trump’s then attorney general Jeff Sessions just before he was set to retire and qualify for his full government pension. McCabe has denied wrongdoing and settled a wrongful termination lawsuit in October 2021 that included restoring his pension.
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