James Comey Indicted Under Pressure from Trump Before Statute of Limitation Expires

Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted on two charges, one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice, on Thursday, Sept. 25, sources told CNN, The New York Times and ABC News.

“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,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X. “We will follow the facts in this case.”

The charges come days after President Donald Trump demanded the Justice Department prosecute Comey and other political foes in a Sept. 20 Truth Social post directly addressed to Bondi. A day before publishing that post, Erik Siebert, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, resigned. He was replaced by White House aide Lindsey Halligan, who was Trump’s former defense attorney and has no prosecutorial experience, per ABC News.

Trump later celebrated the indictment on Truth Social.

The unprecedented indictment marks one of the highest-profile political moves during Trump’s time in office.

MSNBC was the first to warn of the impending indictment on Wednesday, Sept. 24, along with source information that claimed that a prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia who opposed bringing the case was recently fired.

“Sources believe that at least one element of the indictment—if it goes forward—will accuse him of lying to Congress during his testimony on September 30, 2020, about whether he authorized a leak of information,” MSNBC correspondents Ken Dilanian and Carol Leonnig shared on X. “The five year statute of limitations on that charge would lapse on Tuesday.”

Comey was director of the FBI from 2013 until he was fired by Trump in May 2017 after overseeing the FBI’s inquiry into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign had ties to Russia. He has since been a target of the president, who has alleged he’s part of a “deep state” conspiracy to obstruct his administration.

Comey testified before Congress about his management of the Russia investigation on Sept. 30, 2020, during which he defended the FBI’s work as “appropriate” and “essential.”

However, his testimony drew more ire from Trump, after Comey suggested that the president’s behavior made him wonder if Russia had compromising information on him. Comey also said that former President Barack Obama “never” asked him to investigate a political rival, something Trump did repeatedly on Twitter and in his campaign speeches against Hillary Clinton.

“It would compromise the independence of the Justice Department and the FBI’s work,” Comey said. “It would introduce politics into what should be a fact-driven process.”

The former director drew the anger of the new Trump administration in May when he posted and later deleted a photo of seashells that spelled out “8647,” which White House officials took as an assassination threat against the president. (The number “86” is common slang for removing or getting rid of something, and Trump is the 47th U.S. president.)

Hours later, Comey posted an explanation for the cryptic photo, claiming on Instagram that he had come across the shells arranged into those numbers during his beach walk, “which I assumed were a political message.”

“I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence,” his statement continued. “It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down.”

In the world of politics, “86” has been used in non-violent contexts to suggest ousting or impeaching someone. Former Rep. Matt Gaetz famously used “86’d” in 2024 to describe the removal of several top House Republicans.