Federal prosecutors charge former FBI head

A Virginia federal grand jury indicted former FBI Director James Comey on Thursday evening. Prosecutors charged him with giving false statements and obstructing justice related to an investigation into whether Russia influenced the 2016 presidential election. He is presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on X that the indictment reflected the Justice Department’s commitment to hold accountable people in positions of power who mislead the American people. Current FBI Director Kash Patel added in a separate post that law enforcement was politicized during what he called the Russia collusion hoax.

What happened? The charges center on Comey’s testimony at a congressional hearing in 2017, early in Trump’s first term. Trump had fired him earlier that year. Comey said at the hearing that the Trump campaign had links to Russia, but the links did not merit criminal charges. Since then, the president has called the former director corrupt, and Comey often accuses Trump of trying to politicize the government and punish his enemies. 

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, listen to Mary Reichard’s report on Comey’s tell-all book published in 2017.