The Department of Justice is seeking to indict former FBI Director James Comey on perjury charges, multiple outlets report. Comey is accused of lying to Senate Republicans while testifying about “Crossfire Hurricane” in September 2020, and the statute of limitations is about to run out.
“Crossfire Hurricane” was the FBI investigation that probed an alleged link between Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign.
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While testifying in 2020, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz asked Comey if he had ever authorized a leak of information about either the Trump administration or the Hillary Clinton campaign. He said no. Republicans claim that was a lie; Comey has insisted it was not.
In a December 2020 letter to the DOJ, Cruz wrote that ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe admitted to authorizing a media leak. McCabe claimed Comey approved it, but Comey denied being aware of it.
“Mr. McCabe has repeatedly stated that Mr. Comey knew of and effectively authorized the leak by approving it,” Cruz wrote.
Trump and DOJ pressure on the case
Trump fired Comey as the FBI director in 2017. Just over a month after Comey’s firing, he testified in a Senate hearing that he provided documents from meetings with then-President Trump to Columbia Law professor Daniel Richman, a longtime friend, with instructions to pass the information along to a reporter.
Over the weekend, Trump took to Truth Social, calling Comey “guilty as hell.”
“There is a grand jury underway looking at the matter in Virginia. A decision could come any day,” a source close to the matter told Fox News. The extent of the charges is unknown.
Erik Siebert, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, resigned under pressure from Trump because he opposed filing charges against Comey. Siebert was quickly replaced by Lindsey Halligan, an attorney who has represented Trump in past legal cases.
Durham investigation background
During Trump’s first term as president, the DOJ appointed special prosecutor John Durham to investigate whether the FBI did anything wrong when it launched “Crossfire Hurricane.”
The Durham investigation led to criminal charges against three lower-level FBI officials, not senior leadership. Durham found the FBI made serious mistakes in how they handled the investigation. However, he concluded that FBI leadership did nothing illegal.
Comey has not commented on a possible indictment, which prosecutors have until Sept. 30 to file before the statute of limitations expires on Oct. 1.
