Former FBI Director James Comey indicted on two charges

FILE – Former FBI director James Comey is sworn via videoconference before testifying during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2020, to examine the FBI “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation. (Ken Cedeno/Pool via AP, File)

A grand jury has charged former FBI Director James Comey with lying to Congress and obstruction of a criminal proceeding.

The indictment makes Comey the first former senior government official involved in the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election to face prosecution.

President Trump has for years derided that investigation as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” despite multiple government reviews showing Moscow interfered on behalf of his campaign, and has made clear his desire for retribution.

Prosecutors, led by special counsel Robert Mueller, have not established that Trump or his associates criminally colluded with Russia, but they did find that Trump’s campaign had welcomed Moscow’s assistance.

Trump on Thursday hailed the indictment as “JUSTICE FOR AMERICA!” Bondi, a Trump loyalist, and FBI Director Kash Patel, a longtime vocal critic of the Russia investigation, issued similar statements. “No one is above the law,” Bondi said.

The indictment accuses Comey of lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he said he had not authorized anyone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about a particular investigation. Though the indictment does not mention the investigation or its subject, it appears from the context to refer to an FBI inquiry related to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who ran for president against Trump in 2016.

It also alleges that Comey did “corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct and impede the due and proper exercise” of the Senate’s inquiry.

The two-count indictment does not deal with the substance of the Russia investigation.

Comey was fired months into 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 Trump appeared to appeal directly to Bondi bring charges against Comey and complained that Justice Department investigations into his foes had not resulted in criminal cases.

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote, referencing the fact that he himself had been indicted and impeached multiple times. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

Comey, in a video he posted after his indictment, said: “My heart is broken for the Department of Justice but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I’m innocent. So let’s have a trial.”

The office that filed the case against Comey, the Eastern District of Virginia, was thrown into turmoil last Friday following the resignation of chief prosecutor Erik Siebert, who had not charged 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, 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 Trump’s personal lawyers but has not previously served as a federal prosecutor.

Halligan had rushed to present the case to a grand jury this week because 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.

Prosecutors in the first Trump Justice Department declined to prosecute Comey following an inspector general review into his handling of memos documenting his conversations with Trump in the weeks before he was fired. He also was not charged by a special counsel, John Durham, who scrutinized the FBI’s handling of the Trump-Russia investigation.

Earlier this year, the department fired 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.

Separately, Comey’s son-in-law, Troy Edwards, resigned as a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia minutes after Comey was indicted. Troy Edwards wrote in a one-sentence resignation letter addressed to Halligan that he quit his job “to uphold my oath to the Constitution and the country.”

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