If convicted, Comey faces up to five years in prison, according to federal prosecutor Lindsey Halligan, who was appointed by Trump just days ago. She is a former personal lawyer to the President and has no experience as a prosecutor.
“No one is above the law,” Bondi said in a statement as the Justice Department announced charges against Comey for committing “serious crimes”.
Trump said earlier today he has nothing to do with the charging of Comey but he had already hinted publicly that he appointed Halligan to go after him and others.
Comey said, in a video posted on Instagram, “I’m not afraid” and denied any wrongdoing.
Russian influence
Trump fired Comey in 2017 amid a probe into whether any members of the Trump campaign had colluded with Moscow to sway the 2016 presidential vote.
During Trump’s second term, Comey has been an outspoken critic of what he says are the President’s efforts to use the justice system as a tool for political gain.
Trump’s first stint in the White House was dogged by controversy over Russian involvement in trying to influence the 2016 election in which he surprised many by winning the White House – as well as his own links to Russia.
Since returning to power this year, he has moved quickly to use his powers to attack the investigation into the election.
His intelligence chiefs have issued reports casting the original probes as politically motivated and flawed. Trump himself repeatedly calls the entire issue the “Russia hoax”.
However, the intelligence community’s original findings that Russia meddled in the tumultuous 2016 US election have been backed up by committees in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Halligan, the prosecutor, was working under pressure from Trump because the five-year statute of limitations on Comey’s testimony to Congress at the heart of the case expires Tuesday.
She was appointed to the high-profile post of US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after the resignation last week of the previous US Attorney, Erik Siebert.
Siebert stepped down after reportedly telling Justice Department leaders there was insufficient evidence to charge Comey or New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is also in Trump’s crosshairs for bringing a civil case against him for business fraud.
Convicted felon Trump
Trump, the first convicted felon to serve as US President, has taken a number of punitive measures against his perceived enemies and political opponents.
He has stripped former officials of their security clearances, targeted law firms involved in past cases against him and pulled federal funding from universities.
Trump was the target of several investigations after leaving the White House in 2021.
The FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago home in 2022 as part of a probe into mishandling of classified documents and Trump was charged by Special Counsel Jack Smith with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Neither case came to trial, and Smith – in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting President – dropped them both after Trump won the November 2024 vote.
– Agence France-Presse
