Former FBI director James Comey, who was fired months into Trump’s first administration, has long been a top target for Trump supporters seeking retribution.J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press
James Comey was charged Thursday with lying to Congress in a criminal case filed days after U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to urge his Attorney-General to prosecute the former FBI director and other perceived political enemies.
The indictment makes Mr. Comey the first former senior government official involved in one of Mr. Trump’s chief grievances, the long-concluded investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, to face prosecution. Mr. Trump has for years derided that investigation as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” despite multiple government reviews showing Moscow interfered on behalf of the Republican’s campaign, and has made clear his desire for retribution.
Mr. Trump on Thursday hailed the indictment as “JUSTICE FOR AMERICA!” Attorney-General Pam Bondi, a Trump loyalist, and FBI Director Kash Patel, a long-time vocal critic of the Russia investigation, issued similar statements. “No one is above the law,” Ms. Bondi said.
The criminal case is likely to deepen concerns that the Justice Department under Ms. Bondi is being weaponized in pursuit of investigations and now prosecutions of public figures the President regards as his political enemies. It was filed as the White House has taken steps to exert influence in unprecedented ways on the operations of the Justice Department, blurring the line between law and politics for an agency where independence in prosecutorial decision-making is a foundational principle.
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Mr. Comey was fired months into Mr. Trump’s first administration and since then has remained a top target for Trump supporters seeking retaliation related to the Russia investigation. He was singled out by name in a Saturday social-media post in which Mr. Trump appeared to appeal directly to Ms. Bondi bring charges against Mr. Comey and complained that Justice Department investigations into his foes had not resulted in charges.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Mr. Trump wrote, referencing the fact that he himself had been indicted and impeached multiple times. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
The office that filed the case against Mr. Comey, the Eastern District of Virginia, was thrown into turmoil last week after the resignation of chief prosecutor Erik Siebert, who had not charged Mr. Comey and had faced pressure to bring charges against another Trump target, New York Attorney-General Letitia James, in a mortgage fraud investigation.
The following evening, Mr. Trump lamented in a Truth Social post aimed at the Attorney-General that department investigations had not resulted in prosecutions. He nominated as the new U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide who had been one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers but lacked the federal prosecution experience that would typically accompany the responsibility of running one of the Justice Department’s most prestigious offices.
Ms. Halligan had rushed to present the case to a grand jury this week. Prosecutors evaluating whether Mr. Comey lied to Congress during testimony on Sept. 30, 2020, had until Tuesday to bring a case before the five-year statute of limitations expired. The push to move forward came even as prosecutors in the office had detailed in a memo concerns about the pursuit of an indictment.
James Comey was charged Thursday with making a false statement and obstruction in a criminal case filed days after U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to urge his attorney general to prosecute the former FBI director and other perceived political enemies.
The Associated Press
The two-count indictment consists of charges of making a false statement and obstructing a congressional proceeding. Mr. Comey’s lawyer had no immediate comment.
Mr. Trump has for years railed against both a finding by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia preferred him to Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and the criminal investigation that tried to determine whether his campaign had conspired with Moscow to sway the outcome of that race. Prosecutors led by special counsel Robert Mueller did not establish that Mr. Trump or his associates criminally colluded with Russia, but they did find that Mr. Trump’s campaign had welcomed Moscow’s assistance.
Mr. Trump has seized on the fact that Mr. Mueller’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign and the Kremlin colluded, and that there were significant errors and omissions made by the FBI in wiretap applications, to claim vindication. A years-long investigation into potential misconduct during the Russia investigation was conducted by a different special counsel, John Durham. That produced three criminal cases, including against an FBI lawyer, but not against senior government officials.
The criminal case against Mr. Comey does not concern the substance of the Russia investigation but rather accuses him of having lied to Congress.
After his indictment, Mr. Comey said in a social media post that he is innocent and that he has faith in U.S. judicial system.
The indictment comes against the backdrop of a Trump administration effort to cast the Russia investigation as the outgrowth of an effort under Democratic president Barack Obama to overhype Moscow’s interference in the election and to undermine the legitimacy of Mr. Trump’s victory.
Administration officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, have declassified a series of documents meant to chip away at the strength of an Obama-era intelligence assessment published in January, 2017, that said Moscow had engaged in a broad campaign of interference at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A senior Justice Department official in Republican president George W. Bush’s administration, Mr. Comey was picked by Mr. Obama to lead the FBI in 2013 and was director when the bureau opened the Russia investigation in the summer of 2016.
Mr. Comey’s relationship with Mr. Trump was strained from the start and was exacerbated when Mr. Comey resisted a request by Mr. Trump at a private White House dinner to pledge personal loyalty to the president. That overture so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.
Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey in May, 2017, an action later investigated by Mr. Mueller for potential obstruction of justice.
After being let go, Mr. Comey authorized a close friend to share with a reporter the substance of an unclassified memo that documented an Oval Office request from Mr. Trump to shut down an FBI investigation into his first national-security adviser, Michael Flynn. Mr. Trump and his allies later branded Mr. Comey a leaker, with the President even accusing him of treason. Mr. Comey himself has called Mr. Trump “ego driven” and likened him to a mafia don.
The Justice Department, during Mr. Trump’s first term, declined to prosecute Mr. Comey over his handling of his memos. The department’s inspector-general did issue a harshly critical report in 2019 that said Mr. Comey violated FBI policies, including by failing to return the documents to the FBI after he was dismissed and for sharing them with his personal lawyers without FBI permission.
Earlier this year, the department fired Mr. Comey’s daughter, Maurene Comey, from her job as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. She has since sued, saying the termination was carried out without any explanation and was done for political reasons.