The Comey Indictment

It was a long time coming.

On Thursday, it was announced that a grand jury had indicted a longtime target of President Trump’s, former FBI director James Comey.

James Comey has been on President Trump’s so-called target list for a very long time, going all the way back to when President Trump fired him during his first term. He fired him because James Comey almost certainly bootstrapped into the press the so-called Steele dossier. He promoted the Trump/Russia collusion hoax. He was deeply involved in every aspect of that — up to and including the use of the Steele dossier — in documents that were presented directly to President Trump, which was then used as an excuse by the media to push the Steele dossier, a compendium of lies about President Trump, into public view.

There have been open questions about whether James Comey, over the intervening years in which he testified repeatedly in front of Congress, among others, had actually committed perjury.

It is a very, very, very short indictment, a page and a half maximum. It accuses Comey by stating he “did willfully and knowingly make a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement in a matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch of the Government of the United States, by falsely stating to a U.S. Senator during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that he, James B. Comey Jr., had not ‘authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports’ regarding an FBI investigation concerning” President Trump.

The indictment continues, “That statement was false, because, as James B. Comey Jr. then and there knew, he in fact had authorized PERSON 3 to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation concerning” Trump.

The allegation is that there was a person lower down at the FBI who leaked to the press details involving the investigation into President Trump, and it is suggested that the person was authorized by Comey illegally to do that, and Comey subsequently lied about it. Or, if he had the authority to authorize the leak, he lied about it.

That lie is count one, which is the perjury charge. Count two is obstruction of a congressional proceeding, saying then on that same date, based on that same testimony, Comey did “corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct, and impede the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which an investigation was being had before the Senate Judiciary Committee by making false and misleading statements before that committee.”

That is the entirety of the indictment. It is very specific. It is presumably about one or two lines in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The reason it’s being brought so quickly is because there’s a five-year statute of limitations on perjury charges. Comey’s testimony was September 30, 2020. It is now September 26, 2025, so we are about to expire on that statute of limitations.

It appears from much of the public information that this isn’t a particularly well-predicated indictment, and the indictment itself is quite weak and that it’s unlikely to survive in court.

Many of the things mentioned for the possibility of indictment of Comey are immoral and display ethics much worse than this.

But that’s not what he’s being indicted for.

At the end of the day, the indictment that’s left is pretty simple. Comey either lied about leaking to The New York Times in a tantrum because he was getting fired or he didn’t.

James Comey has decided to do what no one should ever do when hit with an indictment, which is to go directly on camera and talk. First rule of lawyering: Tell your client to shut the hell up.

But Comey publicly stated: 

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. 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. I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends upon it, which it does. My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I’m innocent. So let’s have a trial. And keep the faith.

He is simply the worst. Such a self-aggrandizing ridiculous figure.

This person had brought our country to the brink — in terms of the Justice Department, the FBI — for basically a decade, and it turns out he was one of the most ridiculous figures in the history of American public service. Truly a ridiculous figure, not only blowing the Hillary Clinton investigation, but blowing the Donald Trump investigation, manipulating the release, effectively, of the Steele dossier, and then using his perch as the guy who got fired by Donald Trump in order to launch salvos at Donald Trump over and over and over again, while walking through the forest and taking selfies of himself, or walking on the beach and taking pictures of shells on the beach, saying, “86 Donald Trump.”

So don’t mistake my questions about the indictment, that I somehow believe that James Comey is deserving of tremendous sympathy. I do not think that James Comey is worthy of tremendous sympathy. He was an awful director of the FBI, a joke of a public figure, and his “I’m standing up to authority. I am the hero standing in the breach” posturing is silly.

He’s just a silly, silly person. That doesn’t speak to whether the criminal indictment that is being brought here is weak or strong.

We’ll see what the underlying evidence looks like on the face of it.

But as far as personal sympathy for James Comey?

The guy is a schmuck.

It was a long time coming.

On Thursday, it was announced that a grand jury had indicted a longtime target of President Trump’s, former FBI director James Comey.

James Comey has been on President Trump’s so-called target list for a very long time, going all the way back to when President Trump fired him during his first term. He fired him because James Comey almost certainly bootstrapped into the press the so-called Steele dossier. He promoted the Trump/Russia collusion hoax. He was deeply involved in every aspect of that — up to and including the use of the Steele dossier — in documents that were presented directly to President Trump, which was then used as an excuse by the media to push the Steele dossier, a compendium of lies about President Trump, into public view.

There have been open questions about whether James Comey, over the intervening years in which he testified repeatedly in front of Congress, among others, had actually committed perjury.

It is a very, very, very short indictment, a page and a half maximum. It accuses Comey by stating he “did willfully and knowingly make a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement in a matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch of the Government of the United States, by falsely stating to a U.S. Senator during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that he, James B. Comey Jr., had not ‘authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports’ regarding an FBI investigation concerning” President Trump.

The indictment continues, “That statement was false, because, as James B. Comey Jr. then and there knew, he in fact had authorized PERSON 3 to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation concerning” Trump.

The allegation is that there was a person lower down at the FBI who leaked to the press details involving the investigation into President Trump, and it is suggested that the person was authorized by Comey illegally to do that, and Comey subsequently lied about it. Or, if he had the authority to authorize the leak, he lied about it.

That lie is count one, which is the perjury charge. Count two is obstruction of a congressional proceeding, saying then on that same date, based on that same testimony, Comey did “corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct, and impede the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which an investigation was being had before the Senate Judiciary Committee by making false and misleading statements before that committee.”

That is the entirety of the indictment. It is very specific. It is presumably about one or two lines in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The reason it’s being brought so quickly is because there’s a five-year statute of limitations on perjury charges. Comey’s testimony was September 30, 2020. It is now September 26, 2025, so we are about to expire on that statute of limitations.

It appears from much of the public information that this isn’t a particularly well-predicated indictment, and the indictment itself is quite weak and that it’s unlikely to survive in court.

Many of the things mentioned for the possibility of indictment of Comey are immoral and display ethics much worse than this.

But that’s not what he’s being indicted for.

At the end of the day, the indictment that’s left is pretty simple. Comey either lied about leaking to The New York Times in a tantrum because he was getting fired or he didn’t.

James Comey has decided to do what no one should ever do when hit with an indictment, which is to go directly on camera and talk. First rule of lawyering: Tell your client to shut the hell up.

But Comey publicly stated: 

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. 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. I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends upon it, which it does. My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I’m innocent. So let’s have a trial. And keep the faith.

He is simply the worst. Such a self-aggrandizing ridiculous figure.

This person had brought our country to the brink — in terms of the Justice Department, the FBI — for basically a decade, and it turns out he was one of the most ridiculous figures in the history of American public service. Truly a ridiculous figure, not only blowing the Hillary Clinton investigation, but blowing the Donald Trump investigation, manipulating the release, effectively, of the Steele dossier, and then using his perch as the guy who got fired by Donald Trump in order to launch salvos at Donald Trump over and over and over again, while walking through the forest and taking selfies of himself, or walking on the beach and taking pictures of shells on the beach, saying, “86 Donald Trump.”

So don’t mistake my questions about the indictment, that I somehow believe that James Comey is deserving of tremendous sympathy. I do not think that James Comey is worthy of tremendous sympathy. He was an awful director of the FBI, a joke of a public figure, and his “I’m standing up to authority. I am the hero standing in the breach” posturing is silly.

He’s just a silly, silly person. That doesn’t speak to whether the criminal indictment that is being brought here is weak or strong.

We’ll see what the underlying evidence looks like on the face of it.

But as far as personal sympathy for James Comey?

The guy is a schmuck.