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WASHINGTON: James Comey was charged Thursday with lying to Congress in a criminal case filed days after President Donald Trump appeared to urge his attorney general to prosecute the former FBI director and other perceived political enemies.
The indictment makes Comey the first former senior government official involved in one of Trump’s chief grievances, the long-concluded investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, to face prosecution. Trump has for years derided that investigation as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” despite multiple government reviews showing Moscow interfered on behalf of the Republican’s campaign, and has made clear his desire for retribution.
Trump on Thursday hailed the indictment as “JUSTICE FOR AMERICA!” Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Trump loyalist, and FBI Director Kash Patel, a longtime vocal critic of the Russia investigation, issued similar statements. “No one is above the law,” Bondi said.
The criminal case is likely to deepen concerns that the Justice Department under Bondi is being weaponized in pursuit of investigations and now prosecutions of public figures the president regards as his political enemies. It was filed as the White House has taken steps to exert influence in unprecedented ways on the operations of the Justice Department, blurring the line between law and politics for an agency where independence in prosecutorial decision-making is a foundational principle.
Comey was fired months into Trump’s first administration and since then has remained a top target for Trump supporters seeking retaliation related to the Russia investigation. He was singled out by name in a Saturday social media post in which Trump appeared to appeal directly to Bondi bring charges against Comey and complained that Justice Department investigations into his foes had not resulted in charges.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote, referencing the fact that he himself had been indicted and impeached multiple times. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
The office that filed the case against Comey, the Eastern District of Virginia, was thrown into turmoil last week following the resignation of chief prosecutor Erik Siebert, who had not charged Comey and had faced pressure to bring charges against another Trump target, New York Attorney General Letitia James, in a mortgage fraud investigation.
The following evening, Trump lamented in a Truth Social post aimed at the attorney general that department investigations had not resulted in prosecutions. He nominated as the new US attorney Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide who had been one of Trump’s personal lawyers but lacked the federal prosecution experience that would typically accompany the responsibility of running one of the Justice Department’s most prestigious offices.
Halligan had rushed to present the case to a grand jury this week. Prosecutors evaluating whether Comey lied to Congress during testimony on Sept. 30, 2020, had until Tuesday to bring a case before the five-year statute of limitations expired. The push to move forward came even as prosecutors in the office had detailed in a memo concerns about the pursuit of an indictment.
The two-count indictment consists of charges of making a false statement and obstructing a congressional proceeding. Comey’s lawyer had no immediate comment.
Trump has for years railed against both a finding by US intelligence agencies that Russia preferred him to Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and the criminal investigation that tried to determine whether his campaign had conspired with Moscow to sway the outcome of that race. Prosecutors led by special counsel Robert Mueller did not establish that Trump or his associates criminally colluded with Russia, but they did find that Trump’s campaign had welcomed Moscow’s assistance.
Trump has seized on the fact that Mueller’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign and the Kremlin colluded, and that there were significant errors and omissions made by the FBI in wiretap applications, to claim vindication. A yearslong investigation into potential misconduct during the Russia investigation, was conducted by a different special counsel, John Durham. That produced three criminal cases, including against an FBI lawyer, but not against senior government officials.
The criminal case against Comey does not concern the substance of the Russia investigation but rather accuses him of having lied to Congress.
The indictment comes against the backdrop of a Trump administration effort to cast the Russia investigation as the outgrowth of an effort under Democratic President Barack Obama to overhype Moscow’s interference in the election and to undermine the legitimacy of Trump’s victory.
Administration officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, have declassified a series of documents meant to chip away at the strength of an Obama-era intelligence assessment published in January 2017 that said Moscow had engaged in a broad campaign of interference at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A senior Justice Department official in Republican President George W. Bush’s administration, Comey was picked by Obama to lead the FBI in 2013 and was director when the bureau opened the Russia investigation in the summer of 2016.
Comey’s relationship with Trump was strained from the start and was exacerbated when Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private White House dinner to pledge personal loyalty to the president. That overture so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.
Trump fired Comey in May 2017, an action later investigated by Mueller for potential obstruction of justice.
After being let go, Comey authorized a close friend to share with a reporter the substance of an unclassified memo that documented an Oval Office request from Trump to shut down an FBI investigation into his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Trump and his allies later branded Comey a leaker, with the president even accusing him of treason. Comey himself has called Trump “ego driven” and likened him to a mafia don.
The Justice Department, during Trump’s first term, declined to prosecute Comey over his handling of his memos. The department’s inspector general did issue a harshly critical report in 2019 that said Comey violated FBI policies, including by failing to return the documents to the FBI after he was dismissed and for sharing them with his personal lawyers without FBI permission.
Earlier this year, the department fired Comey’s daughter, Maurene Comey, from her job as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. She has since sued, saying the termination was carried out without any explanation and was done for political reasons.
 

VIENNA: Austria’s government announced on Thursday it would press ahead with a divisive motorway project that includes a tunnel under a national park, dealing a blow to opponents of the plan.
The move follows years of prolonged protests and legal wrangling, with the Greens — formerly the governing coalition’s junior partner but now in opposition — securing a halt to the construction in 2021.
In a bid to protect the reserve’s rich and rare wildlife and the surrounding environment, the Greens had ordered a review of all new road-building plans by motorway operator Asfinag.
The project, which dates back to the early 2000s, is designed to ease traffic flow east of the capital, Vienna. It includes the construction of a new expressway junction and a disputed 8km motorway tunnel under part of the Lobau national park.
Opponents of the project argue that construction of the tunnel would damage the fragile ecosystem of the Lobau, which is part of the Danube-Auen National Park, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, and fragment natural habitats, thereby undermining Vienna’s commitment to more sustainable transport.
Austrian Infrastructure Minister Peter Hanke said on Thursday that the project, “including the tunnel solution, is the most efficient way to meet the living and economic requirements” of the Vienna and Lower Austria regions.
He argued that a comprehensive evaluation had shown that there was “no alternative” to the project, which sought to provide “the necessary economic impetus to the region” while “solving the transport challenges.”

The total cost of construction is estimated at €2.7 billion ($3.17 billion) and “will be entirely financed by Asfinag,” the government said.
The construction of the motorway junction is planned for spring 2026.
The project’s second phase, which includes the Lobau tunnel and is due to commence in 2030, is still awaiting final approval.
While some politicians and motorists’ associations welcomed the decision, the Greens and environmental organizations condemned it.
Greens leader Leonore Gewessler, who had spearheaded the suspension of the project as environment minister at the time, criticized the move as a “decision against nature, future generations and common sense.”
Austria’s branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature said the “environmental and health risks” as well as the high costs “clearly speak against” the Lobau tunnel.
The government has stated that it still aims to make the country carbon neutral — balancing greenhouse gas emissions against measures that absorb or sequester carbon — by 2040.