Former FBI Director James Comey will appear in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Wednesday to face charges of making a false statement to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding, a case that brings one of Washington’s most polarizing law enforcement figures back to the same district he once served, albeit under drastically different circumstances.
Comey, who once served as managing assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia’s Richmond Division, was indicted on Sept. 25 by U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, making him the first former FBI director to be criminally charged after leaving office. His arraignment, initially scheduled for Thursday, was moved up a day due to heightened security concerns, according to court filings.
Comey is expected to plead not guilty and has publicly declared that he is innocent and eager to go to trial.
The two-page indictment alleges that Comey “willfully and knowingly” made a false statement during a 2020 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing by denying that he authorized any FBI official to act as an anonymous source in media reports about the bureau’s investigation into “Person 1” — widely understood to refer to President Donald Trump. Prosecutors say Comey, in fact, approved a subordinate to serve as a source for those stories.
If convicted, Comey could face up to five years in prison.
Earlier this week, CBS News reported that FBI leadership wanted to plan a “perp walk” for Comey, but a subsequent report from Reuters suggested the bureau struggled to find agents to handle that matter and reported that an agent was relieved from duty for declining to arrange that type of escort.
The logistics surrounding Comey’s arrival at court, including how his processing will be handled, remain unclear, though the arraignment is expected to take less than an hour.
Ahead of the Wednesday morning arraignment, the public court docket was updated to include two prosecutors: Nathaniel Lemons and Gabriel J. Diaz. Neither prosecutor has a history of handling cases in the Eastern District of Virginia; they were more recently located in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina.
Comey’s indictment represents a stunning turn for a man who once led the nation’s premier law enforcement agency and has long been both vilified and praised for his handling of politically charged investigations. As FBI director, he angered Democrats by reopening the probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails shortly before the 2016 election, and infuriated Republicans by pursuing the Trump-Russia investigation months later. Trump fired him in May 2017, an episode that set off years of partisan recriminations.
After his firing, Comey compared Trump to a “mob boss” in his memoir A Higher Loyalty. Earlier this year, he sustained criticism and was even visited by the Secret Service after posting an image of seashells in the sand that stated “86 47,” a message that was interpreted by Trump and allies as a veiled threat or wish for harm to come to the president. Comey subsequently deleted the post and issued an apology after the backlash.
The president has also engaged in name-calling against the former director, referring to him as a “dirty cop” and celebrating his indictment as “Justice in America!” last month when a grand jury handed down an indictment.
Legal analysts note that the Eastern District of Virginia, known as the “rocket docket” for national security-related matters, was likely chosen because Comey testified remotely from his McLean home, which falls within the court’s jurisdiction. Albany Law School professor Ray Brescia told the ABA Journal that the Alexandria grand jury pool may also have been viewed as more sympathetic to the government than one drawn from Washington, D.C.
Comey’s defense is led by Patrick Fitzgerald, a longtime friend and former colleague from the Southern District of New York, where both men served as prosecutors alongside Rudy Giuliani in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Fitzgerald notably took on the case against former Chicago Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted on charges related to an attempt to sell a U.S. Senate seat after former President Barack Obama vacated it.
Comey’s ties to the Virginia prosecutor’s office also run deep — and personal. During his tenure in the Eastern District of Virginia, Comey served as the Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Richmond Division, where he oversaw major prosecutions involving terrorism, corporate fraud, and national security. He earned recognition for leading the case against Khobar Towers bombing suspect Ahmed al-Darbi and for his role in the Operation Greenback terrorism financing investigation.
After Comey’s indictment, his son-in-law recently resigned as a federal prosecutor in New York, while his daughter, Maurene, a former federal prosecutor in New York, is suing the Justice Department over her dismissal earlier this year.
JUDGE MOVES COMEY ARRAIGNMENT UP A DAY, CITING SECURITY CONCERNS
Likewise, the former U.S. Attorney whom Halligan replaced, Erik Siebert, is the son-in-law of Richard Cullen, a prominent Republican attorney in the Commonwealth, and who was reportedly a godfather to one of Comey’s daughters, the Washington Post reported in 2017.
Trump fired Siebert after reports emerged that he was hesitant to bring a mortgage fraud indictment in a separate case against New York Attorney General Letitia James, though his familial ties raised appearance conflict accusations from Trump allies.
