President Donald Trump has suggested that further criminal charges could be brought against individuals he regards as political adversaries, following the indictment of former FBI director James Comey.
Speaking as he departed the White House for the Ryder Cup golf tournament on Friday, Mr Trump said: “It’s not a list, but I think there’ll be others. I mean, they’re corrupt. They were corrupt radical left Democrats.”
The remarks came a day after the Justice Department filed charges against Mr Comey in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. The indictment accuses him of misleading lawmakers during testimony in September 2020, when he denied ever authorising FBI officials to leak information to the press. Prosecutors allege that Mr Comey had, in fact, permitted his friend, Columbia law professor Dan Richman, to disclose details of the bureau’s investigation into Hillary Clinton.
The case has been widely criticised as weak. A memo prepared by prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia concluded that the evidence was insufficient to secure a conviction. Erik Siebert, then interim US attorney, declined to proceed. Within days, Trump dismissed Mr Siebert and installed Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide with no prosecutorial background, as his replacement. Despite being briefed on the shortcomings of the case, Ms Halligan pressed ahead and personally presented it to a grand jury.
The panel returned indictments on two counts but rejected a third. Court documents show that only 14 of the 23 jurors supported the false statement charge, just two votes above the threshold required.
The decision has heightened concerns that political appointees within the Justice Department may feel emboldened to pursue further cases against Trump’s critics. In recent weeks, the president has publicly called for investigations into New York attorney general Letitia James and Democratic senator Adam Schiff, both of whom have clashed with him in the past.
Ms James brought a civil fraud case against Trump last year, while Mr Schiff led the first impeachment proceedings against him. On his social media platform, Truth Social, Mr Trump demanded that his attorney general, Pam Bondi, pursue charges against the pair, as well as against Mr Comey. “They impeached me twice and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!” he wrote.
The administration has also opened a criminal inquiry into former CIA director John Brennan, a longstanding critic of Mr Trump, over his role in the intelligence community’s assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
In a separate development, the FBI last month searched the home and office of John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, amid allegations that he mishandled classified material. Documents bearing classification markings were recovered, though Mr Bolton’s lawyer insisted they had been declassified.
The indictment of Mr Comey, and Trump’s subsequent comments, have intensified fears that the Justice Department is being used as an instrument of political retribution. Critics warn that the move risks undermining the independence of federal prosecutors and further deepening divisions.
