Comey indictment represents accountability for Republicans — but Dems see corruption

WASHINGTON (CN) — News of former FBI Director James Comey’s indictment has landed with a partisan thud on Capitol Hill, as Republicans cheerlead the move as long-awaited accountability for one of President Donald Trump’s longtime political adversaries.

But Democrats have warned that Comey’s indictment, unsealed by a grand jury in Virginia, is another indication that the Justice Department under the Trump administration is headed down a dangerous path of political vengeance.

The Thursday night indictment accused Comey, who served as FBI director from 2013 until he was fired in 2017, of knowingly making false statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee during a 2020 hearing on the 2016 Trump-Russia probe. He was also accused of obstructing the committee’s investigation. Comey himself has denied the charges.

For congressional Republicans, among whom the ex-FBI director has long been persona non grata, his indictment was a step towards justice served.

“Unfortunately, there’s been a pattern of officials lying to Congress that is a crime,” Texas Senator Ted Cruz told conservative radio host Mark Levin on Thursday. “And Jim Comey, I think, demonstrated complete arrogance and unwillingness to comply with the law.”

The charges against Comey arise from his response to questions from Cruz during the 2020 hearing about whether he had authorized someone at the FBI to serve as an anonymous source in news reports about the government’s investigation into an unnamed person, believed to be Hillary Clinton. The Texas Republican pointed to the former FBI director’s testimony at a previous hearing in 2017 in which he said he had not authorized such activity.

Comey did not directly repeat that claim to Judiciary Committee lawmakers at the 2020 meeting but acknowledged that he still believed it to be true.

“I can only speak to my testimony — and I stand by the testimony you summarized that I gave in May of 2017,” he told Cruz.

Republicans have long argued that Comey lied to lawmakers. Cruz in late 2020 told the Justice Department in a letter that Andrew McCabe, former deputy director of the FBI, had authorized an anonymous leak to the press and that Comey had been aware.

Following Comey’s indictment Thursday, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley pointed out that he and other Republicans had “active investigations” at the time of the ex-FBI director’s statements to the Judiciary Committee.

“If the facts and the evidence support the finding that Comey lied to Congress and obstructed our work, he ought to be held accountable,” Grassley wrote.

Democrats, however, have framed Comey’s prosecution as little more than a hack job by the Trump administration against one of the president’s longstanding political enemies.

“The Department of Justice has become a political tool of a vengeful president,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. “President Trump wears his corruption like a badge of honor and defies anyone daring to challenge him.”

Durbin also accused Attorney General Pam Bondi of willingly complying with “every order” from the White House.

Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, the House Judiciary Committee’s Democratic ranking member, accused the president of undertaking a “wrath and vengeance campaign” against Comey.

“The rule of law was supposed to replace vendettas, blood feuds and mad kings exacting vengeance on their perceived enemies,” said Raskin. “This sordid episode is one more savage assault on justice in America.”

Thursday’s indictment in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia came just days after Erik Seibert, the district’s U.S. attorney, resigned amid reports that he was reticent to pursue mortgage fraud charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James. Trump replaced Seibert with Lindsey Halligan, a former White House official and personal lawyer for the president. Halligan signed Comey’s indictment.

Raskin claimed that Trump had forced Seibert to resign and replaced him with a more pliant prosecutor who would “blindly carry out” the White House’s demands.

“As if by magic, within mere days of being appointed, Ms. Halligan delivered for the president by filing the exact baseless charges against Mr. Comey that her predecessor had rejected,” said the Maryland Democrat.

House Judiciary Committee Democrats on Friday sent a letter to Bondi demanding details on the circumstances of Siebert’s ouster. Trump himself has claimed on social media that he “fired” the Eastern District of Virginia’s top prosecutor.

The second Trump administration has been dogged by accusations that it has employed the Justice Department to pursue the president’s political foes. In addition to its probe into James, the agency has opened mortgage fraud investigations against California Senator Adam Schiff and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Critics have claimed that the mortgage fraud accusations — which originated from Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte — are an abuse of power.

Still, congressional Republicans have insisted that Comey’s indictment was not political.

“He was not indicted because Donald Trump doesn’t like him,” Cruz told Levin. “Although, to be clear, Donald Trump has every reason not to like him, because Jim Comey abused the power of the FBI to target and persecute Donald Trump because he didn’t like him and because he was mad at the American people for electing him.”

Trump fired Comey in May 2017, saying at the time he had removed the FBI director over the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Comey had also reportedly rejected a loyalty request from the president.

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