Ex-FBI Director James Comey to be arraigned after Trump called for his prosecution
WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey will appear Wednesday in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, for arraignment on charges filed after a public campaign by President Donald Trump to prosecute him.
A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted Comey, whom Trump fired during his first term, on two counts last month: making a false statement and obstructing a congressional proceeding.
Trump had posted a message on his social media platform days earlier calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to charge Comey. “We can’t wait any longer,” he wrote.
Comey, who was a registered Republican and served in the Justice Department during the George W. Bush administration, was the subject of Trump’s ire after helping spark special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The Trump administration accuses Comey of lying to Congress about allowing a third party to speak anonymously to the media about an FBI investigation. Comey told Congress in 2017 that he had not authorized any leaks related to an investigation, and he told the Senate again in 2020: “I stand by the testimony.”
Comey is expected to be presented with the charges and plead not guilty at Wednesday’s hearing, which begins at 10 a.m.
The charges were filed after Trump successfully pressured the acting head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia to resign. Trump then named one of his former personal lawyers, Lindsey Halligan, to head the office, even though she has no prosecutorial experience. And Halligan presented the case against Comey to a grand jury herself, which is highly unusual and has raised additional red flags about the merits of the case.
Halligan sought three counts, but at least 12 of the grand jurors found there was no probable cause to indict him on any of the counts. Most grand jurors found there was probable cause to charge Comey with making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding.
Comey is scheduled to appear before U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff. Besides Halligan, two prosecutors from another U.S. attorney’s office in North Carolina — Nathaniel Lemons and Gabriel J. Diaz — were added to the case.
No electronic devices are allowed in the Alexandria courthouse, meaning news about the indictment could take some time to emerge.
Trump has called for charges against other political foes since the start of his second term, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff, Democrat of California.
A group of former federal judges warned last week that the case against Comey poses a “grave danger” to the rights and freedoms of all Americans as “President Donald Trump continues to abuse the power of his office by directing the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to target his perceived critics and political enemies for criminal investigations and prosecutions.” »
