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For Donald Trump, the indictment of former FBI director and longtime foe James Comey was,“justice in America”. Legal observers and lawmakers see something far more troubling.
A former Republican appointed to lead the bureau by Barack Obama and kept on by Trump until he fired him in 2017, Comey was indicted Thursday on charges related to allegedly lying to Congress five years ago during a hearing on the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.
The charges were filed in the eastern district of Virginia only after Erik Siebert was forced out as US attorney for reportedly finding no grounds to indict Comey. The justice department replaced him with Trump loyalist with little prosecutorial experience, Lindsey Halligan, and shortly after, a grand jury indicted Comey on one count of making a false statement to Congress and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding.
The indictment is the latest sign that the president is making good on his promise “to turn our justice system into a weapon for punishing and silencing his critics”, said Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee.
“This kind of interference is a dangerous abuse of power. Our system depends on prosecutors making decisions based on evidence and the law, not on the personal grudges of a politician determined to settle scores,” Warner said.
Democratic senator Adam Schiff, a former federal prosecutor who played a lead role in Trump’s first impeachment, said on X he had “never witnessed such a blatant abuse of the” justice department, calling it “little more than an arm of the president’s retribution campaign”.
Mike Zamore, national director of policy and government affairs at the American Civil Liberties Union, said Trump “has yet again proven his disdain for the principles that have actually made America great”.
“By undermining the rule of law at each and every turn, threatening individuals who speak out against him, and arresting, investigating, and prosecuting elected officials of the opposition party and others who displease him, the president and his administration have corrupted our system of justice to turn his campaign of retribution into reality,” he said, adding that Trump’s public push to indict Comey amounts to “a grotesque abuse of presidential power”.
Democratic congressman Eric Swalwell, a member of the House judiciary committee, told CNN: “I promise you, when Democrats are in the majority, we are going to look at all of this, and there will be accountability, and bar licenses will be at stake in your local jurisdiction if you are corruptly indicting people where you cannot prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt on.”
Norm Eisen, executive chair of pro-democracy group Democracy Defenders Fund, warned the indictment puts “the safety of every American and our national security itself in danger. This indictment has all the hallmarks of a vindictive and meritless prosecution, worthy only of the totalitarian states the United States used to oppose.”
“This matters far beyond James Comey. It’s about every citizen’s right to live free from persecution by their own leaders. Criticizing our leaders is a fundamental right, regardless of how much our leaders don’t like it,” he said.
Trump has spent the hours since Comey’s indictment was announced insulting him on Truth Social, calling him “One of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to” Thursday night and “A DIRTY COP” Friday morning.
His allies have taken up his argument, if not his tone.
“Comey demonstrated complete arrogance and unwillingness to comply with the law,” said Republican senator Ted Cruz, whose exchange with the former FBI director at a 2020 hearing is the subject of the allegations.
Chuck Grassley, the Republican chair of the Senate judiciary committee, said: “If the facts and the evidence support the finding that Comey lied to Congress and obstructed our work, he ought to be held accountable.”
