Former FBI director James Comey charged criminal charges

Former FBI director James Comey was charged with criminal charges on Thursday, making him the first former senior government official to be charged with the Russian interference in the 2016 elections for a long time.

Comey was accused of making a false statement and obstruction in a criminal case, a few days after US President Donald Trump seemed to urge his attorney general to prosecute him as well as other perceived political enemies.

If he is found guilty, Comey risks up to five years in prison.

Comey said that he was innocent and that he had confidence in the American judicial system.

“My heart is broken for the Ministry of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I am innocent, so let’s make a lawsuit and keep the faith,” he said in a video message published on Instagram.

Trump and his supporters have long mocked the investigation in Russia as a “hoax” and a “witch hunt” despite multiple criticism from the government showing that Moscow interfered in the name of the Republican campaign.

The accusation of making a false statement stems from the testimony that Comey made at the Congress five years ago. The Republicans accused Comey and his successor, Andrew McCabe, of lying on the media leaks.

A conviction would oblige a jury to find that Comey knowingly lied with the intention of deceiving.

Trump and his allies react

Shortly after the announcement of the accusations, Trump posted on his social media platform, “Justice in America!” He called Comey “one of the worst human beings to which this country has ever been exposed” and said that he was “now at the start of being held responsible for his crimes against our nation”.

The prosecutor General Pam Bondi, Loyalist of Trump, and the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, a long -standing vocal critic of the investigation in Russia, published similar statements in a joint press release.

“No one is above the law,” said Bondi.

Although an inspector general report and a special council report defeated Comey’s failure for some of his comments and actions during the investigation linked to the agency Russia, no report suggested having committed a potentially criminal act.

Patel said that previous American leaders “armed federal police.”

“Today, your FBI has taken another step in its promise of full responsibility,” he said in his declaration.

The criminal affair is likely to deepen the concerns that the Ministry of Justice under Bondi is armed to pursue surveys, and now prosecution, public figures that the President considers his political enemies.

The accusation of the Grand Jury intervened after the president mentioned Comey by name in a social media position which reprimanded Bondi for not having moved fairly quickly to bring criminal charges against his most eminent antagonists, writing “justice must be done, now”.

Case tabled after the chief prosecutor resigned

The office that filed the case against Comey, the Virginia Oriental District, was thrown into the turmoil last week after the resignation of chief prosecutor Erik Siebert under pressure to carry accusations against another Trump objective, the New York Attorney General, Letitia James, in a mortgage fraud investigation.

Trump named Lindsey Halligan, an assistant from the White House, to serve as an American lawyer for the district. She was one of Trump’s personal lawyers and has no experience as a federal prosecutor.

Halligan rushed to present the case to a great jury this week. Prosecutors had until Tuesday to bring a case before the expiration of the five -year limitation period. The push to go ahead came while the prosecutors of the office expressed concerns, in a memo, to continue an indictment.

The prosecution for having lied to the congress are rare, but not unknown, and the defendants included Trump Ally Roger Stone as well as Michael Cohen, the former lawyer of Trump.

Comey, like all FBI directors before or since then, was a registered republican. Democratic president Barack Obama appointed him to this role, and Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign congratulated Comey for having “guts” to reopen an investigation into the use by Hillary Clinton of a private mail server for years earlier when she was Secretary of State.

But Trump and Comey have had an acrimonious relationship since the president’s first mandate in 2017. Trump dismissed Comey as director of the FBI a few days after having publicly confirmed that the president was the subject of an investigation into the links of his electoral campaign with Russia.

Comey then emerged as an eminent critic of the president, calling him “morally unfit” for his functions.