WASHINGTON (AP) — James Comey was charged Thursday with mendacity to Congress in a felony case filed days after President Donald Trump appeared to induce his lawyer normal to prosecute the previous FBI director and different perceived political enemies.
The indictment makes Comey the primary former senior authorities official concerned in one in every of Trump’s chief grievances, the long-concluded investigation into Russian interference within the 2016 election, to face prosecution. Trump has for years derided that investigation as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” regardless of a number of authorities evaluations displaying Moscow interfered on behalf of the Republican’s marketing campaign, and has made clear his want for retribution.
The felony case is prone to deepen considerations that the Justice Division beneath Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi is being weaponized in pursuit of investigations and now prosecutions of public figures the president regards as his political enemies. It was filed because the White Home has taken steps to exert affect in unprecedented methods on the division, blurring the road between regulation and politics at an company the place independence in prosecutorial decision-making is a foundational precept.
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 comparable statements. “No one is above the law,” Bondi mentioned.
Comey, in a video he posted after his indictment, mentioned: “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.”
Comey was fired months into Trump’s first administration and since then has remained a prime goal for Trump supporters in search of retaliation associated to the Russia investigation. He was singled out by title in a Saturday social media put up through which Trump appeared to attraction on to Bondi deliver fees in opposition to Comey and complained that Justice Division investigations into his foes had not resulted in felony circumstances.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote, referencing the truth that he himself had been indicted and impeached a number of instances. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
Turmoil within the workplace that filed the case
The workplace that filed the case in opposition to Comey, the Jap District of Virginia, was thrown into turmoil final Friday following the resignation of chief prosecutor Erik Siebert, who had not charged Comey and had confronted stress to deliver fees in opposition to one other Trump goal, New York Legal professional Basic Letitia James, in a mortgage fraud investigation.
The next night, Trump lamented in a Reality Social put up aimed on the lawyer normal that division investigations had not resulted in prosecutions. He nominated as the brand new U.S. Legal professional Lindsey Halligan, a White Home aide who had been one in every of Trump’s private attorneys however has not beforehand served as a federal prosecutor.
Halligan had rushed to current the case to a grand jury this week as a result of prosecutors evaluating whether or not Comey lied to Congress throughout testimony on Sept. 30, 2020, had till Tuesday to deliver a case earlier than the five-year statute of limitations expired. The push to maneuver ahead got here whilst prosecutors within the workplace had detailed in a memo considerations concerning the pursuit of an indictment.
The sparse two-count indictment doesn’t cope with the substance of the Russian investigation however as a substitute consists of fees of constructing a false assertion and obstructing a congressional continuing.
It accuses Comey of mendacity to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he mentioned he had not approved anybody else on the FBI to be an nameless supply in information stories a few specific investigation. Although the indictment doesn’t point out the investigation or its topic, it seems from the context to seek advice from an FBI inquiry associated to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who ran for president in opposition to Trump in 2016.
It additionally alleges that he did “corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct and impede the due and proper exercise” of the Senate’s inquiry.
Lingering anger over the Russia investigation
Trump has for years railed in opposition to each a discovering by U.S. intelligence companies that Russia most well-liked him to Clinton, a Democrat, within the 2016 election in addition to felony investigation that attempted to find out whether or not his marketing campaign had conspired with Moscow to sway the end result of that race.
Prosecutors led by particular counsel Robert Mueller didn’t set up that Trump or his associates criminally colluded with Russia, however they did discover that Trump’s marketing campaign had welcomed Moscow’s help.
The indictment comes in opposition to the backdrop of a Trump administration effort to recast the Russia investigation because the outgrowth of an effort beneath Democratic President Barack Obama to overhype Moscow’s interference within the election and to undermine the legitimacy of Trump’s victory.
Administration officers, together with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of Nationwide Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, have declassified a sequence of paperwork meant to chip away on the energy of an Obama-era intelligence evaluation that mentioned Moscow had engaged in a broad marketing campaign of interference on the course of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A senior Justice Division official in Republican President George W. Bush’s administration, Comey was picked by Obama to steer the FBI in 2013 and was director when the bureau opened the Russia investigation in the summertime of 2016.
Comey’s relationship with Trump was strained from the beginning and was exacerbated when Comey resisted a request by Trump at a non-public White Home dinner to pledge private loyalty to the president. That overture so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.
Trump fired Comey in Could 2017, an motion later investigated by Mueller for potential obstruction of justice.
Bloomberg through Getty Pictures
After being let go, Comey approved an in depth buddy to share with a reporter the substance of an unclassified memo that documented an Oval Workplace request from Trump to close down an FBI investigation into his first nationwide safety adviser, Michael Flynn. Trump and his allies later branded Comey a leaker, with the president even accusing him of treason. Comey himself has known as Trump “ego driven” and likened him to a mafia don.
The federal government’s dealing with of the Trump-Russia investigation is among the many most studied chapters of contemporary American historical past, with a number of evaluations and stories devoted to it, and but prosecutors haven’t pursued circumstances in opposition to senior FBI officers.
Prosecutors within the first Trump Justice Division declined to prosecute Comey following an inspector normal assessment into his dealing with of memos documenting his conversations with Trump within the weeks earlier than he was fired. He additionally was not charged by a particular counsel, John Durham, who scrutinized the FBI’s dealing with of the Trump-Russia investigation.
Earlier this yr, the division fired Comey’s daughter, Maurene Comey, from her job as a prosecutor within the Southern District of New York. She has since sued, saying the termination was carried out with none rationalization and was executed for political causes.
Individually, Comey’s son-in-law, Troy Edwards, resigned as a federal prosecutor within the Jap District of Virginia minutes after Comey was indicted. Troy Edwards wrote in a one-sentence resignation letter addressed to Halligan that he give up his job “to uphold my oath to the Constitution and the country.”
Kunzelman reported from Alexandria, Virginia.
