Politics Comey Indicted

[Chris Craig]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/25/politics/james-comey-justice-department-trump-bondi-perjury-virginia

Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted by a federal grand jury, an extraordinary escalation in President Donald Trump’s effort to prosecute his political enemies.

Comey, a longtime adversary of the president, is now the first senior government official to face federal charges in one of Trump’s largest grievances: the 2016 investigation into whether his first presidential campaign colluded with Russia.

He has been charged with giving false statements and obstruction of a congressional proceeding, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X, “No one is above the law.”

“Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people,” Bondi wrote. “We will follow the facts in this case.”

The indictment Thursday evening comes as CNN previously reported about concerns Bondi and prosecutors have had about the case.

Bondi is facing pressure from Trump, who is demanding his political enemies face criminal charges as he once did. But attorneys inside the Eastern District of Virginia recently wrote a memo detailing their reservations over seeking the indictment, ABC News first reported.


Bondi has concerns about the case, which focuses on whether Comey made false statements during congressional testimony involving the 2016 investigation into Russian interference in the US presidential election, according to a person familiar with her thinking, though she believes it would be possible to bring an indictment.

At the White House Thursday, Trump said, “They’re going to make a determination. I’m not making that determination. I think I’d be allowed to get involved if I want, but I don’t really choose to do so.”

Comey, however, is a “bad person,” the president added.

The attorney general had dinner at the White House Rose Garden with Trump and others Wednesday evening.

Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s former personal attorney and the new top prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, has been spotted at the Justice Department twice this week, where sources say she was part ofconversations over whether to charge Comey. Halligan has also had questions about the case, according to a source briefed on the discussions.

‘I just want people to act’
Publicly and privately, Trump has complained that prosecutors were willing to bring numerous criminal cases against him while he was out of office, noting that in those instances he was charged with whatever they had at the time, according to a person familiar with the discussions. The person added that Trump has repeatedly said that the Justice Department should bring the best case it can when it comes to his political opponents and let the court decide the rest.


“I just want people to act. And we want to act fast,” Trump told reporters Saturday as he departed the White House. “If they’re not guilty, that’s fine. If they are guilty, or if they should be charged, they should be charged, and we have to do it now.”

Some inside the White House view Halligan’s willingness to bring the case as her jumping on a grenade to please Trump – though that is why she was picked to take on the role of leading the Eastern District of Virginia. While several Justice Department officials are worried about the strength of any case against Comey, multiple political aides share a different view: they prosecuted Trump, so people like Comey deserve to be prosecuted, too.

I’m always happy to talk about … Comey, who of course is corrupt, who of course has been engaged in vast amounts of illicit and unlawful conduct, who of course was at the center of the Russia gate attack and assault on American democracy,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said on Fox News on Wednesday night. “It has to lead somewhere to accountability.”

Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro this week called for Comey to be imprisoned for a host of Trumpworld grievances – many of which federal prosecutors have previously looked at and didn’t find reason to charge.

Navarro previously did time in federal prison for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas in the investigation intoefforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election leading into the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot.

“There’s a lot of people out there who should be in prison in my judgment, and I think in the judgement of many people in the Trump Administration,” Navarro said. “James Comey’s at the top of that list now.”

 

[Chris Craig]

You guys think this is going to stick?

 

[barfo]

Doesn't sound like they have any convincing evidence, so they'll just make things as unpleasant for him as they can for as long as they can, then drop it.

barfo

 

[riverman]

You guys think this is going to stick?

No, but I do think they are desperate to do something to make it seem like they are not as incompetent as Congress has made them out to be. I don't think it'll work as Comey has prepared for this defense for a long, long time

 

[ehizzy3]

Surprised they could even get a grand jury to sign off on this

but hey, if he’s guilty then he should face consequences.

Did anything ever come from the John Bolton raid?

 

[Chris Craig]

Surprised they could even get a grand jury to sign off on this

but hey, if he’s guilty then he should face consequences.

Did anything ever come from the John Bolton raid?

Not that I heard

 

[crandc]

No one did more to elect Trump in 2016 than Comey.

Statue of limitations runs out September 30 so had to rush.

Judge assigned is Biden appointee which won't make Trump happy.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

I've never seen Comey at our ANITFA meetings.

 

[julius]

Maybe this will get the Epstein files released.

 

[THE HCP]

Surprised they could even get a grand jury to sign off on this

but hey, if he’s guilty then he should face consequences.

Did anything ever come from the John Bolton raid?

Is he still putting out music?

 

[e_blazer]

Pam Bondi should take note of her own comments about no one being above the law.

 

[crandc]

Current US Attorney appointed by Trump to indict enemies after former Republican US Attorney forced out after saying there was no evidence for indictment. She has never prosecuted a case. She is a former associate staff secretary. She was Miss Colorado USA. I am not implying that being conventionally pretty means a woman is dumb but Miss Colorado is not the usual qualification for US Attorney. Someone has to actually prosecute the case and career prosecutors are already resigning.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

 

[wizenheimer]

it will take a couple of years to play out....my guess is acquittal.....if it isn't dismissed

Comey is no hero

 

[julius]

it will take a couple of years to play out....my guess is acquittal.....if it isn't dismissed

Comey is no hero

100%

Whats funny is, he *helped* Trump get elected.

 

[crandc]

Comey is no hero.

Jimmy Kimmel said his show is not important. What is important is having a country where people who want to cancel watch the show.

What's important isn't that Comey is no hero but that we should not have a president use justice system for retribution.

The US Attorney's last gig was reviewing Smithsonian exhibits to eliminate references to slavery.

 

[barfo]

I've never seen Comey at our ANITFA meetings.

That's because he spent the whole time on his knees.

barfo

 

[barfo]

it will take a couple of years to play out...

I heard a talking head speculate that Comey might press for a speedy trial, because DOJ doesn't have it's shit together, so why give them time to prepare?
Apparently a federal defendant has the right to a trial within 60 days or some such.

barfo

 

[SlyPokerDog]

 

[SlyPokerDog]

 

[SlyPokerDog]

CHICAGO — In the run-up to former FBI Director James Comey’s indictment, there was no question who would step up to represent him.

Friend and former colleague Patrick Fitzgerald, who served as U.S. attorney in Chicago for over a decade, would spring from retirement to be his man.


Nationally, Fitzgerald is best known for his role as special prosecutor in the investigation into a CIA leak that brought charges against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

But to Chicago, Fitzgerald is something of a legend. The George W. Bush appointee left an indelible legacy as a scrupulous, hard-charging prosecutor who disrupted the kinds of crooked backroom deals that were long a trademark of Illinois politics.

Over his nearly 12-year tenure as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, his prosecutions took down the Chicago mob, put two consecutive governors — one Republican, one Democratic — behind bars and won a conviction against a top donor to Barack Obama just as Obama was running for the White House. He jailed longtime “untouchables” in Chicago and Springfield political circles while prosecuting international cases, including a Hamas funding scheme and major terrorism cases.

Still in the Chicago area, Fitzgerald retired as a top partner at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom two years ago and was enjoying spending more time with his family while doing some teaching. He’s entering the national spotlight to be Comey’s attorney out of longtime loyalty to a dear friend, those close to him say.

But he’s potentially embarking on what could become a political firestorm. President Donald Trump made clear in his own social media post that he wanted his attorney general to bring charges against Comey.

“Comey implicitly trusts Pat Fitzgerald. They’ve been best friends, or really good friends, for years,” said Robert Grant, former FBI special agent in charge of the Chicago office at the time Fitzgerald served as U.S. attorney. “They’re that close, and he also has a tremendous amount of respect for Pat.”

When Fitzgerald landed in Chicago in 2001, he was dubbed “Eliot Ness with a Harvard Law degree.” But before that, he was the first to bring a case against Osama bin Laden — in 1996 — years before bin Laden masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was one-term Illinois Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (no relation) who recommended Patrick Fitzgerald for the post, at the time saying he wanted someone to lead the office who was unassailable and unafraid to root out public corruption.

“Pat was out of central casting to be the incorruptible guy that was in aggressive pursuit of the facts and dispensing justice and vindicating the public’s right for honest government,” said Patrick Collins, a former federal prosecutor who led the case against former Gov. George Ryan, a Republican.

“As a line assistant who was intensely involved in a prosecution and worked in an office that had a reputation for prosecuting without fear or favor, having Pat Fitzgerald as your boss — he had your back,” he added. “We always knew that cases would rise or fall on the facts.”

Fitzgerald’s and Comey’s personal styles couldn’t be more different. For years, Comey has publicly clashed with Trump, who fired him during his first White House term. Most controversially, Comey held a news conference days before the 2016 presidential election to disclose new findings of an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Comey also frequently posts on social media — including a video on the day of his indictment vowing to take on Trump.

For his part, Fitzgerald is unassuming and does not relish being in the limelight, those close to him say. Fitzgerald, an Amherst College and Harvard Law graduate, had “a steel-trap mind” when they worked together, Grant said, describing a photographic memory that would allow him to rattle off cellphone numbers of defendants years after prosecuting a case. But his demeanor was shaped by humble beginnings in Brooklyn, where he grew up the son of a hotel doorman.

“There’s a little bit of hubris you see in Comey that you don’t see in Pat,” Grant said. “When you first meet Pat, he’s so down-to-earth that you don’t realize what a brilliant mind there is behind that genial exterior. Whoever that prosecutor is, she’s up against a damn good lawyer.”

Lindsey Halligan, the new interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, presented the case to secure Comey’s indictment on her own, according to a source familiar with the grand jury proceedings in Alexandria, Virginia, on Thursday. A senior Justice Department official told NBC News that career prosecutors in Halligan’s office sent her a memo saying they believed probable cause did not exist to secure the indictment.

Trump tapped Halligan — who has no prosecutorial experience but was on his defense team in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case — after the previous acting U.S. attorney left the position under pressure from the president to prosecute Comey.

When he gained national exposure for prosecuting Libby, Fitzgerald became something of a media darling. He was sometimes referred to jokingly as “prosecutie,” according to one of his friends, and in 2005, much to his dismay at the time, he was named in People magazine’s “sexiest men alive” issue.

The straight-laced prosecutor appeared visibly uncomfortable when reporters asked him about the designation at a news conference.

“I almost enjoy going back to the leak questions I can’t answer,” he said at the time. “I played a lot of practical jokes on people for a lot of years, and they all got even at once. OK, new topic.”


Fitzgerald’s investigations during his time in Chicago broke open a seminal case against the criminal organization known as the Chicago Outfit. Dubbed “Operation Family Secrets,” his office brought sweeping charges against more than a dozen mobsters and exposed evidence of 18 previously unsolved murders dating back decades. He also dug into Chicago City Hall, then under the longtime grip of Mayor Richard M. Daley. A massive investigation into an illicit trucking operation sent dozens to prison and exposed the underbelly of city corruption.

Fitzgerald had plenty of detractors.

Many of their criticisms stemmed from one of the highest-profile cases to come of his office: the prosecution of then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The yearslong investigation culminated in the stunning 2008 arrest of a sitting governor. Though several of his aides were already convicted of related crimes, Blagojevich, a Democrat, spoke openly on the phone — with the FBI listening — about how he could extract a personal benefit in exchange for naming the successor to what was then Obama’s vacant Senate seat.

In one of the best-known lines of the case, Blagojevich was recorded relishing a potential payout from using his power as governor to name the next U.S. senator: “I’ve got this thing, and it’s f-----g golden.”

Blagojevich was also later convicted of trying to shake down a children’s hospital executive for a $25,000 campaign contribution in exchange for an increase to pediatric reimbursement rates, as well as holding up action on a horse-racing bill while he illegally sought a $100,000 campaign contribution.

In laying out the charges on the day of the governor’s arrest, Fitzgerald declared Blagojevich was on a “public corruption spree” that would make “Lincoln roll over in his grave.”

Fitzgerald faced criticism for making extrajudicial remarks and potentially prejudicing a jury. For years, Blagojevich assailed Fitzgerald for bringing the weight of the office against him. Trump first commuted Blagojevich’s sentence, then pardoned him earlier this year.

Then there was the Libby case, which involved extensive travel to Washington, D.C., while managing the Chicago office and its myriad blockbuster cases. According to law enforcement officials who worked under him, he never dropped the ball back home. At the same time, Fitzgerald drew national attention as he handled the investigation, which sought to uncover who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent.

At one point in the case, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for refusing to disclose her sources. Fitzgerald took heat from conservatives who called him overzealous in attempting to notch a conviction against Libby, who had served as then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. Bush commuted Libby’s 30-month sentence, and in 2017, Trump pardoned him, saying he had heard Libby was treated unfairly.

In a statement at the time, Fitzgerald defended the prosecution, saying Libby “lied repeatedly and blatantly about matters at the heart of a criminal investigation concerning the disclosure of a covert intelligence officer’s identity.”

Those who worked with Fitzgerald in Chicago defended him as zealously apolitical, noting he served under presidents of both parties. They held up his body of work as evidence he was no friend to those on either side of the aisle.

“I worked with him for nine years. I have no idea if he’s a Republican or a Democrat, and it quite frankly never came up. He’s entirely about justice and doing the right thing,” said Eric Sussman, a defense attorney who worked as an assistant U.S. attorney under Fitzgerald.

Sussman prosecuted a corruption case against onetime media baron Conrad Black, another high-profile defendant sent to prison in that era after he was convicted of diverting proceeds from his newspaper sales for his personal use. Like with Blagojevich, Trump would eventually pardon Black.

“Pat really professionalized the office and made sure that everyone underneath him operated with the same professionalism, integrity and commitment to doing the right thing in Justice,” Sussman added. “That carried over not just to the attorneys in the office, but to how people in Chicago perceived him and perceived the office that he ran.”

 

[Chris Craig]

CHICAGO — In the run-up to former FBI Director James Comey’s indictment, there was no question who would step up to represent him.

Friend and former colleague Patrick Fitzgerald, who served as U.S. attorney in Chicago for over a decade, would spring from retirement to be his man.


Nationally, Fitzgerald is best known for his role as special prosecutor in the investigation into a CIA leak that brought charges against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

But to Chicago, Fitzgerald is something of a legend. The George W. Bush appointee left an indelible legacy as a scrupulous, hard-charging prosecutor who disrupted the kinds of crooked backroom deals that were long a trademark of Illinois politics.

Over his nearly 12-year tenure as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, his prosecutions took down the Chicago mob, put two consecutive governors — one Republican, one Democratic — behind bars and won a conviction against a top donor to Barack Obama just as Obama was running for the White House. He jailed longtime “untouchables” in Chicago and Springfield political circles while prosecuting international cases, including a Hamas funding scheme and major terrorism cases.

Still in the Chicago area, Fitzgerald retired as a top partner at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom two years ago and was enjoying spending more time with his family while doing some teaching. He’s entering the national spotlight to be Comey’s attorney out of longtime loyalty to a dear friend, those close to him say.

But he’s potentially embarking on what could become a political firestorm. President Donald Trump made clear in his own social media post that he wanted his attorney general to bring charges against Comey.

“Comey implicitly trusts Pat Fitzgerald. They’ve been best friends, or really good friends, for years,” said Robert Grant, former FBI special agent in charge of the Chicago office at the time Fitzgerald served as U.S. attorney. “They’re that close, and he also has a tremendous amount of respect for Pat.”

When Fitzgerald landed in Chicago in 2001, he was dubbed “Eliot Ness with a Harvard Law degree.” But before that, he was the first to bring a case against Osama bin Laden — in 1996 — years before bin Laden masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It was one-term Illinois Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (no relation) who recommended Patrick Fitzgerald for the post, at the time saying he wanted someone to lead the office who was unassailable and unafraid to root out public corruption.

“Pat was out of central casting to be the incorruptible guy that was in aggressive pursuit of the facts and dispensing justice and vindicating the public’s right for honest government,” said Patrick Collins, a former federal prosecutor who led the case against former Gov. George Ryan, a Republican.

“As a line assistant who was intensely involved in a prosecution and worked in an office that had a reputation for prosecuting without fear or favor, having Pat Fitzgerald as your boss — he had your back,” he added. “We always knew that cases would rise or fall on the facts.”

Fitzgerald’s and Comey’s personal styles couldn’t be more different. For years, Comey has publicly clashed with Trump, who fired him during his first White House term. Most controversially, Comey held a news conference days before the 2016 presidential election to disclose new findings of an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. Comey also frequently posts on social media — including a video on the day of his indictment vowing to take on Trump.

For his part, Fitzgerald is unassuming and does not relish being in the limelight, those close to him say. Fitzgerald, an Amherst College and Harvard Law graduate, had “a steel-trap mind” when they worked together, Grant said, describing a photographic memory that would allow him to rattle off cellphone numbers of defendants years after prosecuting a case. But his demeanor was shaped by humble beginnings in Brooklyn, where he grew up the son of a hotel doorman.

“There’s a little bit of hubris you see in Comey that you don’t see in Pat,” Grant said. “When you first meet Pat, he’s so down-to-earth that you don’t realize what a brilliant mind there is behind that genial exterior. Whoever that prosecutor is, she’s up against a damn good lawyer.”

Lindsey Halligan, the new interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, presented the case to secure Comey’s indictment on her own, according to a source familiar with the grand jury proceedings in Alexandria, Virginia, on Thursday. A senior Justice Department official told NBC News that career prosecutors in Halligan’s office sent her a memo saying they believed probable cause did not exist to secure the indictment.

Trump tapped Halligan — who has no prosecutorial experience but was on his defense team in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case — after the previous acting U.S. attorney left the position under pressure from the president to prosecute Comey.

When he gained national exposure for prosecuting Libby, Fitzgerald became something of a media darling. He was sometimes referred to jokingly as “prosecutie,” according to one of his friends, and in 2005, much to his dismay at the time, he was named in People magazine’s “sexiest men alive” issue.

The straight-laced prosecutor appeared visibly uncomfortable when reporters asked him about the designation at a news conference.

“I almost enjoy going back to the leak questions I can’t answer,” he said at the time. “I played a lot of practical jokes on people for a lot of years, and they all got even at once. OK, new topic.”


Fitzgerald’s investigations during his time in Chicago broke open a seminal case against the criminal organization known as the Chicago Outfit. Dubbed “Operation Family Secrets,” his office brought sweeping charges against more than a dozen mobsters and exposed evidence of 18 previously unsolved murders dating back decades. He also dug into Chicago City Hall, then under the longtime grip of Mayor Richard M. Daley. A massive investigation into an illicit trucking operation sent dozens to prison and exposed the underbelly of city corruption.

Fitzgerald had plenty of detractors.

Many of their criticisms stemmed from one of the highest-profile cases to come of his office: the prosecution of then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The yearslong investigation culminated in the stunning 2008 arrest of a sitting governor. Though several of his aides were already convicted of related crimes, Blagojevich, a Democrat, spoke openly on the phone — with the FBI listening — about how he could extract a personal benefit in exchange for naming the successor to what was then Obama’s vacant Senate seat.

In one of the best-known lines of the case, Blagojevich was recorded relishing a potential payout from using his power as governor to name the next U.S. senator: “I’ve got this thing, and it’s f-----g golden.”

Blagojevich was also later convicted of trying to shake down a children’s hospital executive for a $25,000 campaign contribution in exchange for an increase to pediatric reimbursement rates, as well as holding up action on a horse-racing bill while he illegally sought a $100,000 campaign contribution.

In laying out the charges on the day of the governor’s arrest, Fitzgerald declared Blagojevich was on a “public corruption spree” that would make “Lincoln roll over in his grave.”

Fitzgerald faced criticism for making extrajudicial remarks and potentially prejudicing a jury. For years, Blagojevich assailed Fitzgerald for bringing the weight of the office against him. Trump first commuted Blagojevich’s sentence, then pardoned him earlier this year.

Then there was the Libby case, which involved extensive travel to Washington, D.C., while managing the Chicago office and its myriad blockbuster cases. According to law enforcement officials who worked under him, he never dropped the ball back home. At the same time, Fitzgerald drew national attention as he handled the investigation, which sought to uncover who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent.

At one point in the case, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for refusing to disclose her sources. Fitzgerald took heat from conservatives who called him overzealous in attempting to notch a conviction against Libby, who had served as then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. Bush commuted Libby’s 30-month sentence, and in 2017, Trump pardoned him, saying he had heard Libby was treated unfairly.

In a statement at the time, Fitzgerald defended the prosecution, saying Libby “lied repeatedly and blatantly about matters at the heart of a criminal investigation concerning the disclosure of a covert intelligence officer’s identity.”

Those who worked with Fitzgerald in Chicago defended him as zealously apolitical, noting he served under presidents of both parties. They held up his body of work as evidence he was no friend to those on either side of the aisle.

“I worked with him for nine years. I have no idea if he’s a Republican or a Democrat, and it quite frankly never came up. He’s entirely about justice and doing the right thing,” said Eric Sussman, a defense attorney who worked as an assistant U.S. attorney under Fitzgerald.

Sussman prosecuted a corruption case against onetime media baron Conrad Black, another high-profile defendant sent to prison in that era after he was convicted of diverting proceeds from his newspaper sales for his personal use. Like with Blagojevich, Trump would eventually pardon Black.

“Pat really professionalized the office and made sure that everyone underneath him operated with the same professionalism, integrity and commitment to doing the right thing in Justice,” Sussman added. “That carried over not just to the attorneys in the office, but to how people in Chicago perceived him and perceived the office that he ran.”

Well that case is over

 

[crandc]

It's not about getting a conviction. It's about smearing reputations. It's about people who don't have national name recognition and access to high powered lawyer being fearful and keeping their mouths shut. It's about shutting off funds to Democrats and opponents of Trump by launching endless "investigations". It's about normalizing the concept that Department of Justice is a vehicle for Trump's retribution.