Virginia federal prosecutors preparing to seek Comey indictment, people familiar with the matter say

The Justice Department is planning to seek an indictment against former FBI director James B. Comey for allegedly giving false testimony to Congress about his role investigating efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election, according to people familiar with the matter.

The effort, which was in the planning stage Wednesday evening, comes days after President Donald Trump demanded prosecutors use the criminal justice system to punish his political opponents.

The investigation centers on testimony Comey gave before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, 2020, about the FBI’s missteps in the “Crossfire Hurricane” probe, which had delved into possible but ultimately unproven collaboration between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Under the statute of limitations, the deadline to seek an indictment against Comey is Tuesday, five years from the date of his testimony.

Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia are preparing to present their case to a grand jury as early as Thursday, according to three people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Any effort to indict Comey must be approved by at least 12 members of a grand jury. The panel could also choose to reject the government’s case. The matter was investigated in Virginia because Comey testified remotely from his home in McLean.

Trump last week forced out the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik S. Siebert, after he declined to prosecute Comey, The Washington Post reported. Trump then installed a White House aide with no prosecutorial experience, Lindsey Halligan, as the interim U.S. attorney in the Virginia office. He also demanded that Attorney General Pam Bondi seek criminal charges against Comey and two other perceived political foes, New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

Prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia revived the case against Comey shortly after Halligan was sworn in Monday, and are preparing to seek an indictment as early as Thursday before a grand jury in Richmond, according to three people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case. The matter was investigated in Virginia because Comey testified remotely from his home in McLean.

Justice Department spokespeople and an attorney for Comey did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump urged Bondi in a social media post over the weekend to charge Comey, James and Schiff with crimes. “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” he wrote. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

Siebert, a career prosecutor who had been serving as interim U.S. attorney since January, determined that the evidence that Comey made materially false statements was insufficient to charge the former FBI director, The Post previously reported. Investigators analyzed at least two of Comey’s responses to questions from Republican senators at the September 2020 hearing, according to the people familiar with the matter.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the panel chairman, asked whether Comey had been aware of an investigative referral that went to FBI leaders on Sept. 7, 2016, “regarding U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”

Comey responded, “That doesn’t ring any bells with me,” which Graham called “stunning.”

Later in the hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) asked Comey whether he had ever authorized leaks to the news media regarding the Trump-Russia investigation or an investigation into Clinton’s email use. Comey stood by earlier congressional testimony from 2017, in which he stated that he had not. Cruz said the FBI’s former deputy director, Andrew McCabe, had said Comey authorized one such disclosure.

In a probe into the Clinton investigation’s disclosure, the Justice Department inspector general found in 2018 that McCabe had “lacked candor when he told Comey, or made statements that led Comey to believe, that McCabe had not authorized the disclosure and did not know who did.”

MSNBC first reported the plans to present the Comey case to a grand jury on Wednesday.

The investigations into James and Schiff both concern their involvement in purchases of property.

James was investigated but not charged this year by prosecutors working under Siebert, after a Trump adviser who leads the Federal Housing Finance Authority, Bill Pulte, accused her of mortgage fraud over a Norfolk home she helped her niece buy in 2023. An allegation that Schiff lied to a mortgage lender when he purchased a second home in Maryland is being investigated by the U.S. attorney’s office in that state.