Editor’s note: This is a preview of The 1600, Newsweek’s daily newsletter where politics and culture director Carlo Versano makes sense of Beltway politics for people outside the Beltway.
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The Insider’s Track
🎶 Friday Listening: Mia x Ally – Free Bird. I used to watch this girl play her bagpipes outside Grand Central and now she’s getting profiled in the Wall Street Journal. Only in America, baby.
As the old saying goes, a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich if given the opportunity. And sure enough, a GJ in Virginia has handed down an indictment of James Comey, the former FBI director whom Trump fired early in his first term, on the basis of an allegation Comey gave false testimony to Congress in September 2020. The reason this happened now is because the statute of limitations was about to run out at the end of this month. Comey will be charged with making a false statement to Congress and obstruction of a Congressional proceeding when he is arraigned on Oct. 9. One thing to watch here is if the feds will obtain a warrant so they can make a big show raiding his house, or whether they will let him quietly surrender. My money’s on the former. In an Instagram video after the news of the indictment came down, a defiant Comey said: “We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either… let’s have a trial.”
It should go without saying the actual case here is total BS. Even the ham sandwich-indicting grand jury tossed one of the three charges, and a federal judge could very well toss the whole case when it reaches the bench. Even if it does go to trial, I’d say the chances of a jury in northern Virginia convicting the former director of the FBI and #resistance hero on some ticky-tack perjury charge are slim to none. But still, this is a stunning moment in President Trump’s revenge tour given that Comey is by far his most high-profile enemy to catch an indictment (John Bolton is likely next up).
I was a little bit surprised by how many people wrote in yesterday to pre-emptively defend Comey as some kind of paragon of justice and ask what my beef with him is. So I’ll tell you. He is a sanctimonious grandstander who is more responsible than any other person except Hillary Clinton for delivering the Trump era with his little stunt a week before the 2016 election. He also sent Martha Stewart to jail for perjury after he couldn’t even get her on a trumped-up securities fraud indictment back in the early 2000s, back when he was an overly ambitious prosecutor in the Bush administration. And now he’s now being prosecuted himself for the same thing he went after Martha for. I’d love to know what she’s thinking this morning.
Of course, Comey being a self-righteous dork is not an excuse for Trump to sic the DOJ on him. This cycle of retribution won’t lead anywhere good, as it just makes clear the Justice Dept. is acting essentially as the president’s personal goon squad. Trump even had to install his own lackey with no prosecutorial experience as the federal attorney in Virginia to even get this case to a grand jury.
MAGAworld will say this is the FAFO principle in action. Comey went after Trump with the Russia stuff, and now he’s getting a taste of his own medicine. On the bigger issue of prosecuting his political enemies, they will point to the 88 total criminal indictments leveled against Trump, spread over four state and federal cases. They’ll point to the classified documents case and the raid on Mar-a-Lago, the J6 fake electors case, the Georgia racketeering case and the Stormy Daniels hush money case that led to the only conviction among them. They will point to those examples as being proof of a sprawling conspiracy to jail Trump so he couldn’t run for POTUS again. But if it really was a conspiracy reaching the highest echelons of the Biden administration, they sure as hell wouldn’t have let Alvin Bragg — the NYC DA with the most spurious case — go first!
Anyone paying attention knew at the time that throwing all these various indictments at Trump after he left office was a bad idea that was going to backfire. The Georgia racketeering case — in which prosecutors had Trump literally on tape asking the secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes” to overturn the election results — was the only one that should have been pursued, as the evidence was the most incriminating (at least until Fani Willis came in and screwed it all up). Everything else was just noise.
This political retribution tour that Trump is currently on is bad for the country, don’t get me wrong. But part of me also hopes this will make people realize just how arbitrary and capricious our criminal justice system is at every level. Those with far less power and money than Donald Trump, Jim Comey and Martha Stewart get prosecuted in similarly ridiculous cases every day, with the full weight of the government brought down to destroy their lives and livelihoods. So don’t expect those folks to give a rat’s ass when they see the elite getting caught up in their own unfair system.
The Rundown
James Comey Indictment Explained: The Charges Former FBI Director Faces
A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, has indicted former FBI Director James B. Comey Jr. on two felony charges tied to testimony he gave before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2020.
The indictment, unsealed on September 25, charges Comey with making false statements to Congress and obstruction of a congressional proceeding—both punishable by up to five years in prison. Comey, the first former FBI director to face federal indictment for testimony to Congress, declared his innocence and said: “Let’s have a trial.” Read more.
Also happening:
Next week: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered hundreds of the nation’s top military officers to assemble at a Marine Corps base in northern Virginia next week for an unscheduled meeting, an unusual move that has raised questions inside the Pentagon. Read more.
Government shutdown: Senate Majority Leader John Thune is dismissing Democratic demands for health care reform as unrealistic, but maintains that a government shutdown can still be avoided. In a Thursday interview with The AP, the South Dakota Republican said Democrats must scale back their expectations if Congress is to reach a deal before Wednesday’s funding deadline. Read more.