Federal prosecutors in Virginia convinced a grand jury to criminally indict former FBI Director James Comey Thursday on charges of making a false statement and obstruction of proceedings, seemingly making good on President Donald Trump’s years-long threat to leverage the U.S. justice system against his perceived political enemies.
The two-count indictment formally accused a man with a lengthy history in the upper echelons of U.S. law enforcement of lying and getting in the way of a federal investigation. It’s a charge that dates back to his Sept. 30, 2020, testimony before Congress about whether he leaked information to journalists about FBI investigations into Trump and Hillary Clinton’s competing presidential campaigns in 2016.
But when the documents were actually posted in court, it became clear that the dozen-plus grand jurors refused to indict Comey on a third count of the proposed indictment: an accusation of another lie relating to the Trump-Russia ordeal.