President Trump is seeking prosecution of Comey in a case that has raised concerns that the president is using the judicial system against his opponents.
Former FBI Director James Comey pleads not guilty to lying to Congress
Former FBI Director James Comey has pleaded not guilty to charges of lying to Congress and obstructing Congress in Alexandria, Virginia.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Former FBI Director James Comey sat stiff-faced and stared straight ahead as he appeared before a federal judge on Oct. 8 as a criminal defendant in the monumental case of the nation’s top former law enforcement official.
The litigation itself in Northern Virginia was fairly routine. Attorneys for Mr. Comey, 64, pleaded not guilty within minutes to two federal charges that his client lied to Congress and obstructed Congressional proceedings in testimony he gave more than five years ago about the investigation into 2016 election interference. Mr. Comey was released without bail pending his trial scheduled for January 5, 2026.
But the underlying incident has a huge impact. President Donald Trump pushed the limits of the Justice Department’s historic independence from the White House by publicly calling for Comey’s prosecution. The incident raised concerns that the president would use the judicial system against his opponents.
Patrick Fitzgerald, a close friend of Comey and a former senior Justice Department official, announced his appointment as defense attorney, saying, “It has been the honor of my life to represent Mr. Comey in this matter.”
Fitzgerald also told U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, a Biden appointee, that Comey would challenge the indictment on several grounds, including that Lindsay Harrigan was not validly appointed as U.S. attorney.
A grand jury indicted Comey on two charges on September 25th. Harrigan has been assigned to the case since President Trump appointed him to replace Eric Siebert, the longtime federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, who resigned or was fired after he reportedly expressed concerns about whether there was enough evidence to go after Comey.
Mr. Comey insisted he was innocent. The first trial in the criminal case marks the beginning of a heated and drawn-out battle that could last months or even years between the career civil servant who will be on the stand in court and the Trump administration’s Justice Department.
Patrick Fitzgerald, a lawyer and friend of James Comey, said the defense’s first substantial contact with the government was on October 7. He said he had no idea who Comey’s associates, Persons 1 and 3 in the indictment, were allegedly involved in Mr. Comey’s illegal activities.
Fitzgerald said he will file a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds of selective and retaliatory prosecution, abuse of the grand jury process and outrageous conduct.
He also said he is seeking to disqualify Lindsay Harrigan because she was not properly seated as U.S. attorney before the grand jury tried the case.
A federal grand jury indicted Comey on September 25 on charges of lying to Congress and obstructing Congressional proceedings in 2020.
Comey allegedly lied during a Congressional hearing on September 30, 2020, when he testified that he did not authorize anyone at the FBI to anonymously divulge information about the investigation to the media. The indictment alleges that Comey knew at the time that he authorized someone to provide anonymous sources of information to reporters about the investigation. The indictment does not name the source.
Comey was charged with disrupting Congress during the same hearing in 2020. The indictment alleges that Mr. Comey fraudulently attempted to influence, obstruct, and obstruct the Senate Judiciary Committee’s investigation “by making false and misleading statements.”
Comey said in a video statement that he is innocent and intends to fight the charges.
Jeffrey Clark, a close aide to President Donald Trump who was investigated after the end of Trump’s first term, accused the Biden administration’s Justice Department of a “historic disgrace” and said a House committee had “tried to destroy” him.
Clark is the acting director of the White House Office of Intelligence and Regulatory Affairs and served as assistant attorney general during President Trump’s first term. In that role, he drafted a letter for Trump to sign urging Georgia state officials to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 election that Trump lost. Clark also suggested that states could submit alternate presidential electors to Congress, which led to charges in Georgia that are still pending.
The FBI searched Clark’s home in June 2022, the day before a House committee hearing on the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Clark said on social media on Oct. 8, the same day that former FBI Director James Comey was indicted on charges of lying to Congress, that the hearing was “designed to use that monolithic structure to try to crush me.”
“The Biden Justice Department was a historic disgrace,” Clark said in another post. “It was a tool of President Biden’s woke, weak ideologues.”
The indictment of James Comey on charges of lying to Congress is highly unusual in that Trump encouraged the prosecution, but another former FBI director faces criminal charges nearly 50 years ago over the Watergate investigation in the 1970s.
Former FBI Acting Director L. Patrick Gray was indicted in 1978 on charges of conspiring to “injure and oppress the people of the United States.” This was a fancy way of saying that during the Nixon administration, it was said that illegal entry was permitted for the purpose of searching for fugitives from the domestic terrorist organization “Weather Underground.”
Former President Richard Nixon had nominated Gray to replace J. Edgar Hoover as FBI director during the Watergate scandal. However, Gray was not confirmed due to concerns about how he managed that investigation. Gray resigned after admitting that he had destroyed documents belonging to Watergate co-conspirator Howard Hunt.
The Justice Department dropped the criminal charges in 1980.
Dan Scavino, the White House chief of staff who manages Trump’s social media, posted a series of messages complaining about how the investigation was conducted after Trump’s first term and encouraging the Senate to review the probe.
“Given what we’ve been through, we’re not surprised,” Scavino wrote on social media on October 8, after former FBI Director James Comey was scheduled to be arraigned on charges of lying to Congress. “The situation will get worse. They stopped at nothing. Scorched earth.”
The U.S. House of Representatives voted to hold Scavino in contempt for defying a subpoena from the committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, but he was not charged.
Scavino said he was under investigation for more than four years during President Trump’s term, with federal marshals and FBI process servers knocking on his door. The Senate Judiciary Committee posted a departmental email in May 2022 saying Scavino would not be indicted but would be investigated for an additional two years.
Scavino said that weeks before the administration re-entered the White House in January, he received notice that the FBI had subpoenaed information about his Google account, calling it “a little piece of the madness that so many of us have experienced.”
In a since-deleted Instagram post in May, James Comey shared a photo of the number 8647 printed with seashells on a beach, according to Reuters. Along with the photo, he wrote, “A cool seashell walk on the beach.”
Some Trump supporters interpreted the post as a threat against President Donald Trump. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “86” is a slang term meaning to throw away, dispose of, or refuse service. Mr. Trump currently serves as the 47th president of the United States.
Federal law enforcement officials announced on May 15 that they were investigating the post.
In a separate post on May 15, Mr. Comey said that when he saw the shells while walking on the beach, he thought it was a political message and was unaware that some people would associate the numbers with violence.
“I never thought about it, but I am opposed to violence of any kind, so I removed myself from that post,” Comey said.
– Aisha Bagchi, Melina Khan, Josh Meyer
In 2017, President Trump fired Comey, who oversaw an investigation into contacts between the Russian government and the Trump campaign in 2016.
Just five days before the indictment, as the five-year deadline for indictment approaches, President Trump posted on social media that Comey was “guilty as hell” and that a delay was not an option.
The post, Trump’s last-minute appointment of Lindsey Harrigan, an aide with no experience as a prosecutor, and his immediate push to indict Comey, and his history of threatening to prosecute political opponents, have raised concerns that the Justice Department’s independence from a vengeful White House is rapidly eroding.
Mr. Comey’s indictment follows a series of statements by Mr. Trump and actions by his political appointees targeting his critics and those who have investigated him.
