ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Former FBI Director James Comey has pleaded not responsible to expenses linked to his 2020 congressional testimony concerning the bureau’s investigation into Russian ties to President Trump’s 2016 marketing campaign.
He appeared Wednesday morning earlier than U.S. District Choose Michael Nachmanoff for his arraignment in federal court docket in Alexandria, Va., the place no cameras or different electronics have been allowed contained in the courthouse to doc the high-profile listening to.
Comey’s plea was entered by his lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald.“It’s the honor of my life to represent Mr. Comey in this matter,” Fitzgerald stated when introducing himself to the choose.
Comey entered the courtroom about quarter-hour earlier than the continuing started.He sat together with his attorneys, fidgeting at instances and clasping his fingers underneath his chin.When prosecutors entered the room, Comey’s attorneys shook fingers with them. However Comey himself didn’t stand up from his seat.
The 2-count indictment in opposition to Comey adopted a stress marketing campaign by Trump, who has incessantly vowed retribution in opposition to his foes and is more and more urging his Justice Division to prosecute them.
Comey is accused of falsely claiming throughout a listening to earlier than the Senate Judiciary Committee that he didn’t authorize a leak to information media concerning the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton and the Trump-Russia probe.
The transient change with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) facilities on testimony Comey gave the committee years earlier, in 2017, when he stated he by no means licensed anybody to be an nameless supply in information studies.
The senator homed in on conflicting accounts between Comey and his former deputy, Andrew McCabe, relating to a leak to the Wall Avenue Journal concerning the Clinton investigation simply days earlier than the 2016 election.
“What Mr. McCabe is saying and what you testified to this committee cannot both be true,” Cruz pressed throughout the 2020 listening to. “One or the other is false. Who’s telling the truth?”
The previous FBI director replied, “I can only speak to my testimony. I stand by the testimony you summarized.”
The terse charging papers in opposition to Comey assert his testimony was false as a result of he “then and there knew” he had licensed an unidentified “Person 3” to function an nameless supply in information studies concerning the probe.
It’s not clear who “Person 3” is, although some information studies have recognized Columbia Regulation College professor Daniel Richman. He beforehand confirmed leaking a memo he acquired from Comey about interactions the then-director had with Trump, as the person.
Comey faces counts of false statements to Congress and obstruction of a congressional continuing. Every felony carries a most penalty of 5 years in jail.
Erik Siebert, the U.S. lawyer who oversaw the investigation into Comey within the Jap District of Virginia, resigned amid stress to hunt an indictment regardless of having decided there was not sufficient proof to take action.
Trump tapped Lindsey Halligan, a former White Home aide with no prior prosecuting expertise, to take over the submit. She was the one prosecutor on the case till Tuesday, when two Justice Division attorneys from North Carolina entered their look.
Costs have been in the end introduced simply days earlier than the five-year statute of limitations within the case was set to run out, and a grand jury declined to indict on a 3rd cost pursued by prosecutors.
Comey’s not responsible plea doesn’t come as a shock. Hours after the costs in opposition to him have been introduced, he professed his innocence and known as for a trial in a video posted to social media.
“My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system,” he stated on the time.
The previous FBI director has grow to be an outspoken Trump critic since he was fired from the president’s first administration in 2017, whereas the probe into Russian ties to Trump’s marketing campaign was nonetheless ongoing.
Trump known as Comey a “dirty cop” after the indictment was made public. The president has lengthy decried the Russia probe as a “hoax” and “witch hunt.”
Comey’s daughter, Maurene, was fired from her job as a prosecutor within the Southern District of New York in July and has tied that to her father’s long-standing feud with the president in a lawsuit difficult her dismissal.
