{"id":95864,"date":"2025-09-26T04:29:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T04:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=95864"},"modified":"2025-09-26T04:29:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T04:29:00","slug":"comey-indictment-escalates-trumps-promise-of-political-retribution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=95864","title":{"rendered":"Comey indictment escalates Trump\u2019s promise of political retribution"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>4 Minute, 5 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>
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This president asks, and he shall receive.<\/p>\n

Less than a week after Donald Trump fired off a Truth Social post specifically calling for a handful of his critics to be prosecuted, one of those targeted \u2013 former FBI director James Comey \u2013 has been indicted.<\/p>\n

The Department of Justice announced a criminal case against Comey late on Thursday, fulfilling the president\u2019s desire to seek retribution and further raising concerns about whether US Attorney General Pam Bondi is weaponising the Justice Department to target Trump\u2019s political rivals.<\/p>\n

Comey has been indicted on charges of making false statements and obstruction of justice in relation to his testimony before a Senate panel in 2020. Prosecutors allege he lied to Congress about whether he authorised the leak of classified information to members of the media.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t take much to connect the dots, even if Trump\u2019s Justice Department insists there is a solid case against the former FBI director and that this is an example of the powerful being held to account.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s indictment reflects this Department of Justice\u2019s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people,\u201d Bondi posted on X as word of the indictment spread.<\/p>\n

Her assertions aside, if there had been anything left of the once-strong firewall between the department and the White House \u2013 long considered sacrosanct by presidents of both parties \u2013 it is now gone.<\/p>\n

Laurie Levinson, a former federal prosecutor and law professor at Loyola Marymount University told the BBC News channel that the firewall had \u201ccompletely collapsed\u201d with this case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is unprecedented, to have the president basically direct his people to indict a specific individual because he\u2019s angry at that person,\u201d Ms Levinson said, referring to Comey.<\/p>\n

Last week, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to urge Bondi to bring charges against his political foes. He complained the Justice Department was slow to charge Comey, Democrat and California Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James \u2013 vocal critics who have long been in Trump\u2019s crosshairs.<\/p>\n

Ms Levinson said Trump has gone further than former President Richard Nixon \u2013 who famously assembled an enemies list \u2013 by replacing prosecutors who have resisted his retribution agenda with ones who are willing to execute it.<\/p>\n

Days after the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, resigned over fears he would be fired for failing to prosecute James for alleged mortgage fraud, Trump appointed a White House aide to the role.<\/p>\n

Lindsey Halligan, one of Trump\u2019s former personal lawyers who has no experience as a federal prosecutor, swiftly brought the Comey case to a grand jury, which agreed there was enough evidence to prosecute.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything about this smacks of vindictive prosecution,\u201d Ms Levinson said.<\/p>\n

To secure an indictment, 12 members of a grand jury only need to vote for probable cause \u2014 not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In addition, the grand jury considers the case based solely on evidence by prosecutors, with no defence attorneys present.<\/p>\n

Annemarie McAvoy, a legal expert and Columbia University professor, notes that prosecutors may have testimony and documentary evidence that supports their case against Comey \u2013 evidence that was presented to the grand jury and could be used to build the case against the former director during trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been questions all along as to whether he was being honest when he said he didn\u2019t leak information,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd you know if there are others who are willing to come forward and say, yes, I got the information from James Comey, then potentially they certainly have a case.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a short statement provided to the media, Comey\u2019s attorney said that he denies the charges and that he looks forward to vindication in the courtroom.<\/p>\n

If this case does, in fact, go to trial, it is poised to unearth long-buried drama from the Russian election-meddling investigation of Trump\u2019s first term, even though the perjury and obstruction charges are quite tangential and small-bore.<\/p>\n

Trump and his supporters are already treating the prosecution of Comey as an avenue to undermine the credibility of the entire Russia investigation. While that probe found ample evidence of attempts to meddle in the 2016 presidential election, it produced no concrete evidence tying Trump directly to those efforts.<\/p>\n

Kash Patel, Trump\u2019s FBI director, called the investigation a \u201cdisgraceful chapter in history\u201d in a post on X after the indictment was announced. He accused what he said was the \u201cprevious corrupt leadership\u201d of weaponising the bureau\u2019s investigatory power.<\/p>\n

Those same accusations are now being directed at Patel, Bondi and the rest of the Trump team. And perhaps the biggest question hanging over all of this is whether the Comey indictment is just an individual event \u2013 a move that might placate a clearly angry president \u2013 or a sign of more prosecutions to come.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"ComeyLess than a week after Donald Trump fired off a Truth Social post specifically calling for a handful of his critics to be prosecuted, one of those targeted \u2013 former FBI director James Comey \u2013 has been indicted.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[993,2944,1910,9295,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-trump","category-fbi","category-international","category-james-comey","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=95864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}