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.
The news comes days after the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia resigned under pressure from President Donald Trump after opposing the filing of charges against Comey.
Comey for years has been a target of Trump’s ire.
The president, in a social media post on Saturday, called Comey “guilty as hell” as he raged about the lack of criminal charges against the former FBI leader.
MSNBC reporter Ken Dilanian, in a post on X, said Comey is expected to be indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia, according to three people familiar with the matter.
“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.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that day had asked Comey if he lied when he said he did not, as FBI director, authorize a leak of information to The Wall Street Journal for an October 2016 article about 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 that charge 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.”
In May 2017 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey had said he “never” had been an anonymous source in news reports about probes involving Trump or Clinton, and that he had not authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source.
In his September 2020, testimony, Comey said he stood by that answer.
“Mr. Comey and Mr. McCabe’s statements are irreconcilably contradictory,” Cruz wrote to the Justice Department. “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.
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 acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Erik Siebert, who resigned Friday.
“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.”
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