Former FBI Director James Comey is in hot water with a two-count indictment from the Department of Justice for allegedly misleading Congress.
Just The News reported that Comey faces charges for false statements and obstructing a Senate Judiciary Committee inquiry in September 2020, tied to his denials about media leaks and memory lapses over a 2016 Clinton campaign plan to smear Donald Trump with Russian ties.
Let’s rewind to 2016, when the Intelligence Community caught wind of a purported Clinton campaign strategy to distract from her email server fiasco by linking Trump to Vladimir Putin.
By late July 2016, as the Democratic National Convention nominated Clinton, this so-called Clinton Plan was allegedly greenlit, per Special Counsel John Durham’s 2023 report.
Comey, then FBI Director, was briefed by CIA Director John Brennan in early August and received a referral memo on September 7, 2016, detailing Clinton’s alleged scheme to tie Trump to Russian hackers.
Yet, astonishingly, some key FBI officials were left in the dark about this intelligence, with reactions of shock and betrayal surfacing years later when Durham’s team revealed it.
Fast forward to September 2020, when Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, repeatedly claiming no recollection of the CIA referral memo despite handwritten notes from 2016 suggesting otherwise.
Senator Lindsey Graham pressed hard, asking, “Do you recall getting an inquiry from […] the intelligence community in September 2016 about a concern that the Clinton campaign was going to create a scandal regarding Trump and Russia?”
Comey’s response—“That doesn't ring any bells with me”—feels like a dodge when evidence, including a recently unearthed memo from a locked safe at FBI headquarters, points to the contrary.
The DOJ’s indictment, secured by interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan in September 2020, charges Comey with making false statements about authorizing leaks to the media through his associate Dan Richman.
It also accuses him of obstructing Congress by misleading Senators like Graham and Josh Hawley about both the leaks and his supposed memory gap on the Clinton Plan.
While a third count on his lack of recall was rejected by the grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, the obstruction charge still leverages those questionable denials as evidence.
Comey, who was fired by President Trump in 2017, pleaded not guilty in October and is pushing to disqualify Halligan and dismiss the charges altogether.
With a trial slated for January, this case promises to unpack whether Comey’s actions were mere forgetfulness or a deliberate attempt to stonewall a critical Congressional probe.