{"id":2033,"date":"2025-09-27T10:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T10:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=2033"},"modified":"2025-09-27T10:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T10:07:08","slug":"comey-indictment-raises-fears-of-politicised-us-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldpumpnews.com\/?p=2033","title":{"rendered":"Comey indictment raises fears of politicised US justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

Donald Trump has sparred with James Comey for years. But on Thursday night, their confrontation culminated in a federal indictment of the former FBI director that marks a watershed for the rule of law in America.<\/p>\n

In recent months, the Trump administration has unleashed a series of attacks against its perceived foes.\u00a0But Comey\u2019s indictment, which comes days after the US president demanded his prosecution on social media, ruptures a decades-old tradition of curbing presidential influence on law enforcement. <\/p>\n

Critics say the charges that Comey lied to Congress and obstructed a Senate proceeding risk turning the Department of Justice into a White House weapon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a pattern since day one of this administration of using government power to reward and excuse the president\u2019s friends and to harass and punish the president\u2019s critics,\u201d said Gregg Nunziata, a conservative lawyer and executive director at the Society for the Rule of Law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Comey\u2019s indictment marked \u201ca really dramatic escalation\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009also in corrupting the justice department, its values, and the men and women that hold on to those values\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n

\"James<\/picture>
Comey is charged with lying to Congress<\/span> \u00a9 Alex Brandon\/AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As head of the executive branch, Trump oversees the DoJ and can set its policy priorities. But under norms established after Richard Nixon\u2019s Watergate scandal in the 1970s to protect the department\u2019s independence, presidents refrain from demanding prosecutions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The department\u2019s leadership and US attorneys are appointed by the president and confirmed by Congress. They are expected to make independent prosecutorial decisions based on the evidence.<\/p>\n

Critics fear Comey\u2019s indictment opens the floodgates to politically driven cases \u2014 a goal that Trump appeared to endorse on Friday, when he warned that while there was no list of who would be targeted next, \u201cthere will be others\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a pivotal moment in American history,\u201d said Anthony Coley, a former DoJ official under ex-president Joe Biden. \u201cThere are still guardrails \u2014 the judge could dismiss [Comey\u2019s indictment] on selective prosecution grounds, and a jury could acquit. But in many ways the process itself is the punishment. The message from Trump is unmistakable: cross him, and he\u2019ll come for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DoJ has already launched mortgage fraud investigations involving Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor Trump is seeking to fire, and Letitia James, the New York attorney-general who last year brought a civil fraud case against Trump. Both women deny wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

The DoJ is also said to be investigating Adam Schiff, the Democratic senator from California. Trump last week named Schiff, alongside James and Comey, in a social media post in which he urged US attorney-general Pam Bondi to target them. \u201cNothing is being done\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!\u201d he wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other potential targets remain unclear. But Trump has pledged to seek retribution against a swath of individuals, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney, the Republican lawmaker who helped lead congressional efforts to investigate the attack at the US Capitol on January 6 2021.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump on Thursday also named billionaire Democratic donors George Soros and Reid Hoffman as members of the \u201cradical left\u201d who could be investigated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Political efforts to influence law enforcement are not new in American history. A report by the Office of Inspector General found \u201csignificant evidence that political partisan considerations were an important factor\u201d in former president George W Bush\u2019s \u201cfundamentally flawed\u201d removal of nine US attorneys in 2006.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bill Clinton had a fraught relationship with former US attorney-general Janet Reno, who sought to keep the president at arm\u2019s length and allowed independent counsel Kenneth Starr to broaden his inquiry into the president to include his liaison with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.<\/p>\n

But Trump\u2019s pressure on law enforcement is on a different scale, according to some law experts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a brand new frontier for a US president to apparently order the indictment of a citizen, itself extraordinary, and here despite career prosecutors [reportedly] saying there\u2019s insufficient evidence to bring charges,\u201d said Ryan Goodman, professor at the New York University School of Law. \u201cI know of no parallel in modern American history.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trump administration is also mobilising the broader government apparatus to target opponents. Allegations of mortgage misconduct from the Federal Housing Finance Agency have underpinned federal probes, such as the ones against Cook and James. <\/p>\n

Democrats were outraged by Comey\u2019s indictment, which came after the US attorney in charge of the investigation resigned. \u201cThe Department of Justice has become a political tool of a vengeful President,\u201d Dick Durbin, the senior Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee, said in a scathing statement, adding: \u201cIs there one Republican left in Washington who gives a damn?\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans have largely backed the prosecution, which focuses on Comey\u2019s 2020 testimony to a Senate committee about leaks from an FBI investigation. \u201cFundamentally, this is about accountability, and I think that\u2019s what a lot of people have been asking for. OK?\u201d Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican member of Congress, told Fox Business on Friday. <\/p>\n

Lindsey Graham, the Republican Senator from South Carolina, wrote on X:\u00a0\u201cIf the FBI director can lie to a court and weaponise politics to destroy our president, the rule of law has died.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mike<\/picture>
Comey at the White House. He is a longtime Republican who was appointed to prominent positions by George W Bush and Barack Obama <\/span> \u00a9 Mandel Ngan\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Trump\u2019s DoJ describes Comey\u2019s indictment as a necessary step to rid law enforcement of political bias they believe was demonstrated by criminal cases filed against Trump in the months leading up to the 2024 general election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During the Biden administration, the DoJ obtained two indictments against Trump. The cases were overseen by a special counsel, an external prosecutor who is appointed to handle politically sensitive matters.<\/p>\n

FBI director Kash Patel, who answers to Bondi, on Friday rejected accusations of political interference. \u201cThe wildly false accusations attacking this FBI for the politicisation of law enforcement comes from the same bankrupt media that sold the world on Russia Gate \u2014 it\u2019s hypocrisy on steroids,\u201d he wrote in a post on X.<\/p>\n

The White House and the DoJ did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Comey, who headed the FBI when it investigated contacts between Trump\u2019s 2016 campaign and the Russian government, on Friday said he was innocent and welcomed a trial. <\/p>\n