(Headline USA) Ex-FBI Director James Comey was charged Thursday with lying to Congress, charges that stem from him illegally authorizing the leak of information to news media ahead of the 2016 election.
The indictment makes Comey the first former senior government official involved in targeting Trump in the politically motivated Russiagate investigation to face consequences. Trump has for years derided that investigation as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt,” and former DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found in 2023 that the FBI didn’t have a firm basis for launching the investigation in the first place.
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.
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 two-count 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 he did “corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct and impede the due and proper exercise” of the Senate’s inquiry.
Adopted from Associated Press reporting.
