The Comey Case – Trump’s Revenge Campaign Against the Rule of Law

The indictment against James Comey reads like a document from an authoritarian handbook: barely two pages, brought by a newly installed Trump loyalist with no notable prosecutorial experience, and yet a thunderclap. On the evening of September 25, 2025, the former FBI director was indicted before a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, for making false statements and obstructing a congressional proceeding. Officially, it concerns a short passage of his testimony before the Senate in 2020. In truth, it is the fulfillment of a long-held revenge promise by Donald Trump.

For years, Comey has been considered one of the president’s arch-enemies - the man who dared to set the FBI on the trail of suspected Russian ties to Trump’s campaign. Now, just in time before the statute of limitations on his earlier testimony expired, the justice system, under direct pressure from the president, is ready to push through a politically motivated indictment. Career prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia had considered the case far too weak. But they were overruled - by Lindsey Halligan, a Trump defense lawyer with no notable prosecutorial background, who had been personally installed by Trump at the head of the prosecutor’s office only days before.

The scene in Alexandria shows how fragile the protective walls against political interference have become. A grand jury, led by a political attorney, an indictment that hardly goes beyond generalities - and yet it is the most serious attack by the Trump administration on a senior critic since the beginning of the second term. Even the judge at the federal court in Alexandria expressed irritation: parts of the requested charges had been rejected by the jury, others - vaguely worded and forced through by loyalists - were adopted. “This has never happened before,” she is said to have remarked in the courtroom.

Comey responded with fighting words. In a video message, he declared: “We will not live on our knees, and you should not either.” He recalled his daughter Maurene, who had been removed under dubious circumstances from the Justice Department in the summer, and spoke of fear as the tool of a tyrant. It was an appeal to those remaining remnants of an independent judiciary that Trump has not yet brought under his control.

The White House, by contrast, triumphed. “Justice in America!” Trump exulted on his Truth Social platform. For him, the indictment is another step in publicly humiliating his enemies. In the past, he had called Comey a “bad person,” a “scandal for the nation.” Now he could savor the moment he had long yearned for. But behind the façade of satisfaction lies a dangerous pattern. Career lawyers warn of a “dangerous abuse of power.” If indictments are no longer based on evidence but on the personal feuds of a president, then the justice system loses its protective function. Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, spoke of an “abyss” into which the United States would be driven if political revenge campaigns replaced prosecutorial judgment.

The details of the indictment appear almost grotesque. The question is whether Comey told the truth in 2020 when he said he had not authorized anyone to speak anonymously with journalists about an ongoing investigation. “Person 1” - allegedly Hillary Clinton - and “Person 3,” according to our research his then deputy Andrew McCabe, appear in the document without clear identification. It is a legal construct built on sand. Even many Trump-loyal lawyers admit that the evidentiary value is meager. But that apparently does not matter.

In parallel, a second front is raging: In the Western District of Virginia, officials are investigating whether high-ranking FBI officials may have hidden documents related to the Russia affair – a theory circulating in Trump’s orbit but so far entirely baseless, unfounded. The very fact that such a claim is being pursued by federal prosecutors shows how deeply the apparatus is already under political control. The consequences can already be seen. Hardly had the indictment been released when Comey’s son-in-law, himself a federal prosecutor, resigned – in protest against what he called a betrayal of the Constitution. Others may follow. The exodus of independent jurists would further weaken the Justice Department and make Trump’s grip even tighter.

Comey himself is not the first FBI chief to be criminally prosecuted - but the comparison limps. In the 1970s, it was about illegal house searches during the Watergate era. Today, however, criminal law serves as a tool of personal retribution. Trump’s attorney general Pamela Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel set the direction clearly: no one stands above the law - but in truth, it is about ensuring that no one stands above Trump.

The former FBI chief, who was fired by Trump in 2017 after refusing to stop the Russia investigation, now stands at the center of a political judicial farce. Whether the evidence is sufficient hardly matters. It is about symbolism. It is about fear. It is about the signal that anyone who opposes Trump must expect personal consequences - no matter how many years have passed.

The Comey case is therefore more than just an indictment. It is a reflection of what happens when democratic institutions are deliberately hollowed out and the justice system is turned into a political weapon. Whoever overlooks this signal, whoever downplays it, tacitly accepts that the rule of law in America is no longer what it once was.

And yet there remains a voice that refuses to be silenced. James Comey, once the man who led the FBI, now a defendant in the president’s crosshairs, speaks of dignity, of courage, and of resistance against the tyranny of fear. The only question is how many in the United States and beyond are willing to take these words seriously - before the rule of law finally becomes a relic of the past.