Month: October 2025

Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted by a federal grand jury on Sept. 25, 2025 – only the second time in history an FBI director has faced criminal charges.

The indictment came just five days after President Donald Trump took to social media to demand that Comey be prosecuted, and three days after Trump installed a former aide as the prosecutor to bring the case.

Legal experts across the political spectrum describe this as an unprecedented political prosecution that breaks fundamental democratic norms and mirrors tactics used by authoritarian leaders worldwide.

As a professor of law, I think Comey’s indictment is momentous because it tests a principle that has protected American democracy for 50 years: Presidents should not direct prosecutors to charge their political enemies.

When leaders can abuse the justice system to target critics and investigators, the rule of law collapses.

An unconstitutional indictment

The evidence of political interference in Comey’s indictment is unusually strong. Trump waged an eight-year vendetta against Comey after the FBI investigated Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

On Sept. 20, Trump posted on Truth Social demanding prosecution: “What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell… We can’t delay any longer… JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

After the indictment, Trump called Comey “one of the worst human beings this country has ever been exposed to.”

The Fifth Amendment protects against vindictive and selective prosecution. To prove vindictive prosecution, a defendant must show through objective evidence that the prosecutor acted with “genuine animus” and that the defendant would not have been prosecuted except for that hostility.

As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit explained in United States v. Wilson in 2001, the government cannot prosecute someone to punish them “for doing what the law plainly allows him to do.” When circumstances create a realistic likelihood of vindictiveness, the burden shifts to the government to justify its conduct.

After Comey’s indictment, Jordan Rubin, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan D.A.’s office, stated: “If the Trump administration’s prosecution of James Comey isn’t ‘selective’ and ‘vindictive,’ then those words have lost all meaning.”

Additionally, three former White House ethics counsels – Norman Eisen, Richard Painter and Virginia Canter – wrote to Congress after Comey’s indictment, saying that in the U.S. “a president should never order prosecutions of his enemies. That happens in Putin’s Russia, and it has happened in other dictatorships, but not here. Until now.”

They concluded: “If the Trump administration can do this, then no American is safe from political prosecution.”

Broken judicial norms

For 50 years since the Watergate scandal that exposed President Richard Nixon’s abuses of power, American presidents have followed a core principle: They must not interfere in decisions about who gets investigated or charged, especially not for political reasons.

The Justice Department’s manual includes the post-Watergate requirement that legal judgments must be “impartial and insulated from political influence.”

The three former ethics counsels emphasized that during their service, they “never once saw” Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama or Bill Clinton “suggest that the Department of Justice should prosecute a specific person, much less a political adversary.”

Comey was indicted on two counts – one count of making a false statement to Congress and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding, both in connection with his testimony before a Senate committee in September 2020.

The allegations against Comey were reviewed multiple times. Special counsel John Durham examined them during Trump’s first term. Prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., during the Biden administration called Comey to testify before a grand jury about allegedly using his friend Daniel Richman as a conduit to leak information to the press. And career prosecutors in 2025 under former U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert also reviewed the allegations. Everyone declined to charge Comey.

The procedural breakdown reveals how fundamentally this case violates norms.

Career prosecutors wrote a memo in September 2025 stating they could not establish probable cause to charge Comey. When Siebert refused to proceed, Trump removed him and installed Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s former personal defense attorney. She has no prosecutorial experience.

Three days later, Halligan brought the indictment. She signed it alone – no career prosecutors put their names on it, as is usually done. The grand jury rejected one of the three charges prosecutors tried to bring, a rare signal of weak evidence.

Comey’s son-in-law, Troy A. Edwards Jr., a federal prosecutor in the same office where Halligan now works, resigned immediately, stating he was leaving “to uphold my oath to the Constitution.”

Comey was arraigned on Oct. 8 and pleaded not guilty.

Echoes of authoritarians

Prosecuting former law enforcement officials who investigated the country’s leader is not typical of democracies. It is a hallmark tactic of authoritarian rulers seeking to consolidate power.

In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrested his main political rival in March 2025 on corruption charges that critics call politically motivated. Between 2014 and 2020, Erdogan investigated 160,000 Turks for insulting the president and prosecuted 45,000 of them, including a 14-year-old boy. More than 1,400 people were arrested and detained in nationwide protests.

Russia under Vladimir Putin provides the starkest example. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by security services, imprisoned on politically motivated charges and ultimately died in prison in 2024. Even the lawyers who defended Navalny faced criminal prosecution.

In Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro has systematically arrested opposition leaders and forced critics into exile. Maduro inherited a stacked Supreme Court from his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, that has systematically nullified opposition legislation. The court has also orchestrated takeovers of opposition parties and certified Maduro’s fraudulent 2024 election claim despite opposition evidence showing it won by a 2-to-1 margin.

And Hungary’s Viktor Orban created the Sovereignty Protection Office with powers to investigate any organization or person it suspects of receiving foreign support to influence public life or the democratic process. Orban also installed a loyalist chief prosecutor under whose office “numerous high-profile allegations of corruption have been either quietly shelved or investigated perfunctorily before being dropped,” according to EU Today.

The pattern is clear: When leaders can use the justice system to protect themselves, whether by prosecuting investigators, refusing to investigate corruption or intimidating the judiciary, democratic institutions erode and the rule of law becomes a tool of political control rather than a constraint on power.

What this means for America

Legal experts predict Comey will be acquitted – the evidence is weak and the political interference is blatant.

But as a scholar of legal ethics, I believe the damage is already done.

Trump has shown he can force prosecutors to charge his enemies. Future government officials now face an impossible choice: investigate powerful people, as Comey did, and risk prosecution, or decline to investigate and allow corruption to flourish.

Yet there may be a silver lining: When governments break norms this brazenly, they often create legal vulnerabilities.

Legal commentator Ed Whelan has pointed out that Halligan’s appointment may violate a 1986 Office of Legal Counsel memo authored by then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General Samuel Alito, which concluded that only one interim U.S. attorney appointment is permitted under the statute. Former interim U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert had already served that term. If Halligan wasn’t validly appointed, the indictment may be legally void.

The precedent this case sets affects every American. As the former ethics counsels wrote after Comey’s indictment: “No American should have to go through the experience of being prosecuted under these circumstances, and the rest of us should not have to live in fear that it may also happen to us.”

Cassandra Burke Robertson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Former FBI Director James Comey pleaded not guilty to two criminal charges in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Oct. 8, 2025. The charges allege that Comey lied to Congress in September 2020 when he stood by earlier testimony that he did not authorize a leak of an FBI investigation involving Hillary Clinton.

Numerous legal commentators on both the left and right have argued that Comey’s indictment is little more than the Trump administration seeking vengeance on one of the president’s perceived enemies. They allege that the president has it out for Comey, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and was fired by Trump in 2017.

The president’s own words support the idea that the Trump administration is targeting Comey. In a social media post on Sept. 20, 2025, Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to move forward with prosecutions against Comey, Democratic U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James: “They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. …JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

If the case against Comey is exceedingly weak – and little more than a political prosecution – then, in my view as a scholar of the U.S. legal system, it should result in the dismissal of charges by the judge or a not guilty verdict by the jury.

But even when an individual is not convicted, the process of defending against charges can itself be a form of punishment, as renowned legal scholar Malcolm Feeley pointed out almost 50 years ago.

Here’s how the criminal justice process punishes even innocent people.

The criminal justice process

The criminal justice process is complex.

After a grand jury returns an indictment at the request of a prosecutor, the accused appears in court for their arraignment. They are informed of the charges against them and typically enter a plea.

During what’s called “discovery,” the prosecution and defense investigate the evidence the other side plans to rely on. There are also pretrial motions in which the parties ask judges to dismiss charges and accept or exclude evidence.

The defense and prosecution may also meet to discuss a plea bargain, wherein the accused may plead guilty in exchange for a lesser sentence or reduced charges.

If there is no plea bargain, then the case moves to trial, which is itself a complicated process. If a defendant is found guilty, they can mount an appeal to higher courts in an attempt to have their conviction overturned.

To help navigate this process, criminal defendants typically hire a lawyer.

And good lawyers don’t come cheap.

Money and time

Indigent defendants, who do not have the financial resources to pay their own legal fees, can rely on public defenders paid for by the government.

But individuals who can afford to pay for their own lawyer face a substantial financial burden for attorney services and court fees. An experienced criminal defense lawyer can charge more than US$1,000 per hour, with fees quickly adding up. This means that mounting a legal defense can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars.

On top of this, it takes a great deal of time to prepare for a criminal case. While lawyers and their staff do much of the legwork for trial preparation, a client works with their attorneys to help formulate a defense.

As a result, criminal defendants lose one of the most precious commodities in the world: their time.

And this time can come at a tangible cost in the form of lost wages, which harms their day-to-day lives. Put simply, every hour spent preparing for trial is an hour defendants could spend working or enjoying their lives.

Stress and embarrassment

It’s not pleasant being charged with a crime.

The criminal process, which typically lasts months, takes a toll on one’s mental health. This is largely driven by the uncertainty surrounding the outcome of a criminal trial and the possibility of losing one’s freedom if convicted.

In addition, there is a social stigma that comes with being accused of a crime. This can result in reputational damage, anxiety and embarrassment.

The Trump administration appears to recognize this reality.

Several media outlets have reported that FBI leadership had planned a public perp walk for Comey.

According to a CBS News report, this was to have included “‘large, beefy’ agents … ‘in full kit,’ including Kevlar vests and exterior wear emblazoned with the FBI logo.” Apparently, the plan was aborted after several FBI supervisors refused to cooperate, viewing it as inappropriate. One agent was disciplined for insubordination after refusing to go along with the plan to embarrass Comey in this way.

Not all criminal defendants suffer the same

The extent to which criminal defendants experience the criminal justice process as a form of punishment varies from person to person.

For high-status people like Comey, lost wages and attorneys’ and court fees may not be that big of a deal.

But these costs may be incredibly significant for other people who have been, or are likely to be, targeted by the Trump administration.

The high costs of lawyers’ fees are well known to the president. For instance, his political action committee spent millions of dollars on attorneys’ fees in an unsuccessful effort to defend Trump from criminal charges in New York.

In addition, people no doubt experience the psychological stress and stigma of a possible criminal conviction differently. But regardless of one’s wealth, the lost time spent preparing a criminal defense is something that cannot be replaced.

The recognition that the criminal process is itself a form of punishment is one of the reasons that the Department of Justice has maintained independence from the president. By violating the tradition of staying out of politics, the Justice Department in the Trump administration has opened the door for the president to seek retribution on his perceived political enemies.

The mere act of putting them through the criminal process ensures that they suffer, regardless of their guilt or innocence.

Paul M. Collins Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Late spending, exacerbated by a mid-battle candidate switch, and lack of attention to voters’ top concerns are among the reasons Democrats lost the White House last year, the Democratic National Committee determined in its assessment of the defeat.

The DNC started briefing top Democrats this week on parts of its post-election review, a highly anticipated post-mortem for a party still divided over what led to President Donald Trump’s second victory and how to forge a path back to electoral power.

DNC officials argued Democrats didn’t spend early or consistently enough to engage and persuade voters, one of several problems the party faced in 2024, the committee said. Swapping Joe Biden with Kamala Harris atop the ticket intensified those systemic, long-term problems for the party, the officials said, according to two people briefed by the DNC this week and granted anonymity to discuss those conversations. So far, Biden’s age has not come up, they said.

The DNC officials said the party’s failure to respond to voters’ top issues led to losses across once-core constituencies, including working class voters. One of the people briefed said they understood that assessment to mean Democrats “didn’t talk enough about bread-and-butter issues, and instead, we talked about social issues, social anxieties.” That could portend a DNC critique of the Harris campaign, which some Democrats said emphasized abortion and democracy over the economy and immigration.

The DNC is not expected to release its post-election report until after the New Jersey and Virginia elections in November, arguing privately they must focus on the off-year races in which Democrats appear poised to win the blue states.

The third person briefed on the report said it will examine Democrats’ role in the media ecosystem, advocacy, organizing and technology, and make recommendations for how the party can improve. It will also analyze paid content, messaging, candidate travel and spending decisions from last year.

One of the people described the takeaways as “one, we can’t invest late in building out infrastructure in the states, and two, long-term investment is more important than late investment.”

“The problem with our side — we saw it in 2016, 2020 and 2024 — the money comes late and we need the money to come earlier. The issue for our side is not the lack of money, it’s how late it comes,” the person added.

Even so, it’s not clear how some of these conclusions square with reality.

The Biden campaign did only maintain a skeletal on-the-ground staff in some battleground states, worrying in-state Democrats, as POLITICO reported in December 2023. But Biden’s campaign also started communicating with voters earlier than any other modern presidential reelection campaign.

Biden’s campaign dropped $25 million on ads in September 2023, earlier than both Barack Obama and Donald Trump’s reelection timelines. It spent another $30 million in March 2024 on ads. At the time, Biden’s team argued this early investment would activate key voters.

What questions the DNC tackles in its post-mortem, what conclusions it draws, and who it blames, if anyone, will inevitably inflame Democrats, reopening wounds over an election in which the party lost ground with voters across every demographic and ceded every swing state.

DNC Chair Ken Martin pledged to publicly release the results after he was elected in February, turning what would end up in the post-election review into a parlor game for frustrated Democrats. Some hope the party will take aim at the consultant class, a position Martin ran on during his in-house race. Some Democrats want the leadership of Harris’ campaign to receive more direct blame, while others point fingers at Future Forward, the flagship super PAC that backed her bid. And others believe the DNC needs to more aggressively reevaluate its own role in the defeat.

It’s also not clear if the report will tackle Biden’s advanced age — a top attack line from the GOP that his team downplayed, but one that was put on national display during his disastrous debate performance — and well as his decision to not exit the race until three months before the election.

So far, in these sessions, the DNC did not call out any person or entity by name, these two people said, but one acknowledged, “I don’t know what’s in the full document.”

When asked about the briefings, a DNC aide said the committee was in regular contact with Democrats to share early insights of its analysis, but added the report was not complete and interviews are still ongoing. The aide warned that topics not covered in the briefings may be addressed in the final assessment.

Two of those briefed said the DNC is also using the sessions to prepare for the New Jersey and Virginia elections, where it’s piloting new voter contact projects.

“The DNC has this core role as an infrastructure hub, and they’re looking critically at where that wasn’t strong enough and early enough,” the second person continued. “There were a lot of conversations about what kind of quality persuasion tactics should be deployed, how long that stuff takes, the perpetual problem of talking to voters at the very end of the cycle.”

They also said the DNC shared an analysis of the Republican ecosystem, particularly focused on their online communications, where Democrats “tend to go dark in the off-years in a way [Republicans] don’t do,” the person added.

​Politics

President Donald Trump’s mid-cycle redistricting push is on the verge of stalling in Indiana, top state Republican officials have warned the White House, and Vice President JD Vance is on his way to the Hoosier state to turn things around.

The cautionary note, shared by three Republicans close to the deliberations, prompted Vance’s second trip in three months to the state to mount a “hard push,” one of the people said. The people cited in this story were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.

During the visit, the White House political shop is threatening to conduct its own whip operation.

Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, conveyed his concerns about the redistricting effort’s chances in the state Senate to the White House last week, two people familiar with those discussions told POLITICO. 

One of those people said Indiana GOP Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray “has been doing nothing to help the effort along or encourage his members, but has been really sort of hiding behind them, and maybe even subtly or not so subtly pouring cold water on the idea so that he can say he doesn’t have the votes.”

The White House’s renewed pressure campaign comes as Republicans look to keep up their momentum in their national redistricting fight — building on new maps they passed in Texas and Missouri that could net them up to six House seats in next year’s pivotal midterms. Remapping Indiana’s congressional lines could help the GOP secure two more.

Some of those seats could be offset by the Democratic push to respond in California, where voters will decide on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s push in an Election Day ballot question. And given the GOP’s narrow advantage in the House, any stalling from a red state takes on added importance.

“I think the main thing is that the governor has consistently said that he wants to get the legislature on board with this approach,” the second person said. “He has indicated to the White House that he doesn’t think that they’re all there yet. And their main reaction to that is that, you know, the vice president wants to come out and continue to put the hard sell on Indiana legislative Republicans to get from point A to point B on this.”

Bray, according to the two Republicans, delivered the White House the same message. The state’s Speaker of the House, Todd Huston, told the president’s team he is willing to “get this done,” one of the Republicans said, but is concerned about securing votes in the Senate, as well as the optics of remapping the state mid-decade.

“I don’t think Houston has been particularly helpful, but he’s not really been harmful,” the person said. “I think he’ll go along. And we can pull the house along if we have to.”

White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair and Political Director Matt Brasseaux are expected to arrive in the state Thursday in their personal capacities to help with the pitch. They’ll be joined by Republican National Committee Chief of Staff Michael Ambrosini.

“I think the White House is going to take stock of the votes,” one of the Republicans told POLITICO. “And if people are going to say we’re not going to help Republicans, then I think the White House is going to make them tell them that to their face.”

The White House and a spokesperson for Vance did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Bray declined to comment. And a spokesperson for Huston said, “the Speaker is still having conversations and getting feedback from his caucus members and constituents on this topic.”

Vance learned of the talks in recent days, one of the Republicans allied with Trump’s efforts said, and offered to go to Indiana for a second time, following his August visit to meet with local Senate Republicans.

Since the Vance meeting, Club for Growth Action, a top conservative super PAC, has also run digital ads pressuring Indiana lawmakers to take up redistricting.

Vance’s visit comes just weeks after former Transportation Secretary and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigeig visited the Indiana Statehouse to rail against redistricting efforts, saying that Hoosier Republican leaders were “ashamed of what they’re doing.”

White House allies in Indiana have argued that the death of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk, who backed primaries for holdout state lawmakers, should lead to renewed efforts to redistrict.

“They killed Charlie Kirk — the least that we can do is go through a legal process and redistrict Indiana into a nine to zero map,” Sen. Jim Banks, the Republican of Indiana, told POLITICO last month.

The Indiana Capital Chronicle earlier Wednesday first reported of Vance’s visit.

“It’s probably fair to say that the House, all things being equal, would rather not do it, but they’re also not going to go walk the plank before they know they’ve got cover across the hallway,” the person added of the state Senate.

Andrew Howard contributed to this report. 

​Politics