Former FBI Director James Comey is expected to be indicted on criminal charges in the coming days in federal court in Virginia, MSNBC reported Wednesday.
Comey for years has been a target of President Donald Trump, who fired him as FBI director early in his first term in the White House.
News of the potential indictment came days after Erik Sieber, the interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia resigned under pressure from Trump after opposing the filing of charges against Comey in that district.
Siebert was replaced as interim U.S. Attorney on Monday by Lindsey Halligan, who has previously represented Trump in personal legal cases.
Trump, in a social media post Saturday, called Comey “guilty as hell” as he raged about the lack of charges against the former FBI leader.
MSNBC reporter Ken Dilanian, in a post on X, wrote Wednesday, “The full extent of the charges being prepared against Comey is unclear.”
“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 tweeted.
Dilanian later said that two people familiar with the matter told him that prosecutors in Halligan’s office presented her with “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.”
Dilanian noted 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.” ABC News first reported
Comey, during his September 2020 testimony, under questioning by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, stood by his prior testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he did not, as FBI director, authorize a leak of information to The Wall Street Journal for an October 2016 article.
That article detailed a Justice Department probe of then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s email use.
Dilanian, who reported Wednesday’s story with his MSNBC colleague Carol Leonnig, noted that the five-year statute of limitations on a charge of lying to Congress against Comey would lapse next Tuesday.
Cruz, in a December 2020 letter to the Justice Department, wrote that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe had admitted knowing about and authorizing the leak.
Cruz wrote that while McCabe has insisted that Comey was aware of his decision to authorize the disclosure, Comey “has denied this claim.”
“Mr. Comey and Mr. McCabe’s statements are irreconcilably contradictory,” Cruz wrote. “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 has requested comment from Comey through his book publisher on MSNBC’s report.
The White House, the Justice Department, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Trump, in a Truth Social post on Saturday that was aimed at Attorney General Pam Bondi, said that Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-California, are “all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to get done.”
“Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job,” Trump wrote, referring to Siebert.
“That’s why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case,” wrote Trump, who had put Sierbert into the job.
“No, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many lawyers, and legal pundits, say so. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot. We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT.”
