Former FBI Director James Comey lashed out at Donald Trump, calling him ‘a tyrant’ and challenging him to a trial after the president’s DOJ indicted him.
Comey defiantly stated he’s ‘not afraid’ and promised his family would ‘not live on our knees’ as he prepared to surrender Friday morning on the charges against him.
‘Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant and she’s right but I’m not afraid and I hope you’re not either,’ Comey said on Instagram.
‘My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump. But we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way. We will not live on our knees and you shouldn’t either.’
The former spy chief was probed over with his September 30, 2020 testimony on what was known as ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ by the FBI, the original probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia in 2016.
The DOJ indicted Comey on one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction, while a grand jury declined to indict Comey on a third count, which was a second count of making false statements, according to documents obtained by the Daily Mail.
‘I hope instead you’re engaged, you’re paying attention and you will vote like your beloved country depends on it, which it does,’ Comey continued.
‘My heart is broken for the Department of Justice but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system. I’m innocent, so let’s have a trial and keep the faith,’ added Comey.
Donald Trump celebrated the indictment on Truth Social by calling Comey ‘one of the worst human beings this Country.’
Former FBI Director James Comey called Trump ‘a tyrant’ and refused to back down after he was indicted by the Department of Justice on one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction
Comey has been a staunch critic of Donald Trump ‘s administration since the president fired him in 2017
Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the charges in a post to social media Thursday evening.
‘No one is above the law,’ she wrote. ‘Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people. We will follow the facts in this case.’
In a statement to The Daily Mail, Comey’s attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald said: ‘Jim Comey denies the charges filed today in their entirety. We look forward to vindicating him in the courtroom.’
The case stems from a 2017 incident where Comey, who was FBI director at the time, shared seven memos documenting private conversations he had with Trump.
Comey then gave those to his friend, Columbia Law professor Daniel Richman, who leaked details to the New York Times. This report led to Robert Mueller being appointed special counsel to probe whether Trump colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
In September 2020, Comey was brought before Congress to discuss Crossfire Hurricane – the codename for the Trump-Russia investigation.
He was pressed by Republicans about leaks at the FBI during his tenure, including the memos.
Comey denied that he authorized anyone to disclose the memos to the media, stating of his friend: ‘I had no idea he was going to do that.’
The indictment makes Comey the first former senior government official to face prosecution in connection with one of Trump´s chief grievances: the long-concluded investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election
Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the charges in a post to social media Thursday evening
While Comey has been investigated for lying to Congress in the past, he had not been convicted.
A 2019 DOJ Inspector General report found that he improper leaked, but declined prosecution because Comey’s denial was ‘narrow.’
The indictment makes Comey the first former senior government official to face prosecution in connection with one of Trump´s chief grievances: the long-concluded investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump and his supporters have long derided that investigation as a ‘hoax’ and a ‘witch hunt’ despite multiple government reviews showing Moscow interfered on behalf of the Republican´s campaign.
The criminal case is likely to deepen concerns that the Justice Department under Bondi, a Trump loyalist, 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 has long been a top target for Trump supporters seeking retribution.
He was singled out by name in a Saturday social media post in which Trump complained directly to Bondi that she had not yet brought charges against him.
Donald Trump celebrated the indictment on Truth Social
The following evening, Trump said in a Truth Social post aimed at the attorney general that department investigations had not resulted in prosecutions.
He said he would nominate Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide, to serve as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
‘The charges as alleged in this case represent a breach of the public trust at an extraordinary level,’ said U.S. Attorney Halligan in a statement.
‘The balance of power is a bedrock principal of our democracy, and it relies upon accountability and a forthright presentation of facts from executive leadership to congressional oversight. Any intent to avoid, evade, prevent, or obstruct compliance is a violation of professional responsibility and, most importantly, the law.’
She has been one of Trump’s personal lawyers and does not have experience as a federal prosecutor.
‘Today, your FBI took another step in its promise of full accountability,’ said current FBI Director Kash Patel in a statement.
‘For far too long, previous corrupt leadership and their enablers weaponized federal law enforcement, damaging once proud institutions and severely eroding public trust.’
‘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!!!’
Former FBI Director James Comey is set to be indicted by the Department of Justice on one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction
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 under pressure to bring charges against another Trump target, New York Attorney General Letitia James, in a mortgage fraud investigation.
Comey´s son-in-law resigned as a federal prosecutor minutes after the former FBI director was indicted Thursday.
Troy Edwards quit his job ‘to uphold my oath to the Constitution and the country,’ he wrote in a one-sentence resignation letter addressed to Lindsay Halligan, the newly appointed U.S. Attorney in Virginia´s Eastern District, the office that charged Comey.
Edwards was the the deputy chief of the National Security Section, a prestigious role in a U.S. attorney´s office that covers the Pentagon and CIA headquarters, handling some of the highest-profile espionage cases.
Halligan had rushed to present the case to a grand jury this week. Prosecutors were evaluating whether Comey lied to Congress during testimony on Sept. 30, 2020, and they 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.
Trump has for years railed against both a finding by U.S. 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.
Acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan (pictured) was appointed earlier this month
FBI Director James Comey pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 3, 2017, before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing: ‘Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.’
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 years-long 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.
Rather, it accuses him of having lied to a Senate committee in his 2020 appearance when he said he never authorized anyone to serve as an anonymous source to a reporter about the investigation.
Trump´s administration is trying 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.
Comey has for years been a prime Trump antagonist. Comey was a senior Justice Department official in Republican President George W. Bush´s administration, was picked by Obama to lead the FBI in 2013 and was director when the bureau opened the Russia investigation.
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.
Critics call the continued prosecution of Comey by Halligan politicized and have pointed to her ties to defending Trump in past cases.
But Comey has also instigated the president.
On May 15, 2025, he posted a photo on Instagram showing seashells arranged to form the message, ‘8647.’ He captioned the image with: ‘Cool shell formation on my beach walk.’
It was deleted just hours later after Trump allies interpreted it as a code calling for the 47th president’s assassination. The service industry slang to ’86’ something is to get rid of it.
Comey insisted he was unaware of any political meaning and said he opposed violence.
But DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced Secret Service launched an investigation and the former FBI Director voluntarily sat for an hour interview with the president’s protective detail.
