WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 James Comey was charged Thursday with lying to Congress in a criminal case filed days after President Donald Trump appeared to urge his attorney general to prosecute the former FBI director and other perceived political enemies.
The indictment makes Comey the first former senior government official involved in one of Trump’s chief grievances, the in the 2016 election, to face prosecution. Trump has for years derided that investigation as a 鈥渉oax鈥 and a 鈥渨itch hunt鈥 despite multiple government reviews showing Moscow interfered on behalf of the Republican鈥檚 campaign, and has made clear his desire for retribution.
Trump on Thursday hailed the indictment as 鈥淛USTICE FOR AMERICA!鈥 Attorney General , a Trump loyalist, and FBI Director Kash Patel, a longtime vocal critic of the Russia investigation, issued similar statements. 鈥淣o one is above the law,鈥 Bondi said.
The criminal case is likely to deepen concerns that the Justice Department under Bondi is 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.
Comey was months into Trump鈥檚 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 Trump appeared to appeal directly to Bondi bring charges against Comey and complained that Justice Department investigations into his foes had not resulted in charges.
鈥淲e can鈥檛 delay any longer, it鈥檚 killing our reputation and credibility,鈥 Trump wrote, referencing the fact that he himself had been indicted and impeached multiple times. 鈥淛USTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!鈥
The office that filed the case against Comey, the Eastern District of Virginia, was thrown into turmoil last week following , who had not charged Comey and had faced pressure to bring charges against another Trump target, New York Attorney General Letitia James, in .
The following evening, 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 Trump鈥檚 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.
Halligan had rushed to present the case to a grand jury this week. Prosecutors evaluating whether 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.
The two-count indictment consists of charges of making a false statement and obstructing a congressional proceeding. Comey’s lawyer had no immediate comment.
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 Trump or his associates criminally colluded with Russia, but they did find that Trump鈥檚 campaign had welcomed Moscow鈥檚 assistance.
Trump has seized on the fact that Mueller鈥檚 investigation did not find that the Trump campaign and the Kremlin colluded, and that there were made by the FBI in wiretap applications, to claim vindication. A yearslong investigation into potential misconduct during the Russia investigation, was conducted by a different special counsel, . That produced three criminal cases, including against an FBI lawyer, but not against senior government officials.
The criminal case against Comey does not concern the substance of the Russia investigation but rather accuses him of having lied to Congress.
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鈥檚 interference in the election and to undermine the legitimacy of Trump鈥檚 victory.
Administration officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, have 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鈥檚 administration, Comey was picked by Obama to lead the FBI in 2013 and was director when the bureau opened the Russia investigation in the summer of 2016.
Comey鈥檚 relationship with Trump was strained from the start and was exacerbated when Comey resisted a request by 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.
Trump fired Comey in May 2017, an action later investigated by Mueller for potential obstruction of justice.
After being let go, Comey authorized a close friend to share with a reporter the substance of an unclassified memo that documented an Oval Office request from Trump to shut down an FBI investigation into his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Trump and his allies later branded Comey a leaker, with the president even accusing him of treason. Comey himself has called Trump 鈥渆go driven鈥 and likened him to a mafia don.
The Justice Department, during Trump鈥檚 first term, declined to prosecute Comey over his handling of his memos. The department鈥檚 did issue a harshly critical report in 2019 that said 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 , 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.
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Kunzelman reported from Alexandria, Virginia.
