Former FBI Director James Comey is likely to be indicted on criminal charges in federal court in Virginia within days, according to MSNBC.
For years, President Donald Trump has directed hostility toward Comey, whom he dismissed from the FBI during his first term at the White House, MSNBC noted. The report surfaced shortly after Erik Sieber, who had served as interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, resigned under Trump's pressure when he resisted approving charges against Comey, MSNBC said.
Sieber was succeeded on Monday by Lindsey Halligan, an attorney tied to Trump through past personal cases, MSNBC reported. Trump raged about Comey on social media Saturday, calling him "guilty as hell" while decrying the lack of charges, according to MSNBC.
Reporter Ken Dilanian of MSNBC wrote on X that the details of potential charges remain uncertain. "But the sources believe that at least one element of the indictment – if it goes forward – will accuse him of lying to Congress during his testimony on September 30, 2020 about whether he authorized a leak of information," Dilanian wrote.
In a later update, Dilanian cited two individuals familiar with the case who said that Halligan's prosecutors received "a memo explaining why charges should not be brought against James Comey, because there isn't enough evidence to establish probable cause a crime was committed, let alone enough to convince a jury to convict him."
He added that "Justice Department guidelines say a case should not be brought unless prosecutors believe it's more likely than not that they can win a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt," as ABC News first disclosed.
Comey's 2020 Senate testimony included questioning from Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, during which Comey affirmed earlier testimony that he did not, as FBI director, authorize a disclosure to The Wall Street Journal tied to an October 2016 piece. That article addressed a Justice Department investigation into then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's email practices.
Dilanian, reporting with his MSNBC colleague Carol Leonnig, wrote that the statute of limitations for a perjury charge against Comey expires Tuesday. In a December 2020 letter, Cruz told the Justice Department that Andrew McCabe, who was deputy director of the FBI at the time, had acknowledged approving the disclosure.
Cruz wrote that although McCabe insisted Comey knew of his decision to authorize the release, Comey "has denied this claim." "Mr. Comey and Mr. McCabe's statements are irreconcilably contradictory," Cruz stated. "Mr. McCabe says that he told Mr. Comey of the leak and that Mr. Comey approved – effectively authorizing the leak after the fact. Mr. Comey, on the other hand, has said that he neither authorized the leak nor knew of Mr. McCabe's involvement." "One of them is lying under oath – a federal crime," Cruz wrote.
CNBC asked Comey for comment about the MSNBC report through his publisher. The White House, the Justice Department, and the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia did not answer CNBC's requests for comment.
On Truth Social, Trump directed comments at Attorney General Pam Bondi that targeted Comey as well as New York Attorney General Letitia James and Congressman Adam Schiff of California, saying, "all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to get done." He added that "Then we almost put in a Democrat supported US Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job," referring to Sieber.
