Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted by the Department of Justice on one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction.

Comey has been a staunch critic of Donald Trump’s administration since the president fired him in 2017.

Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed the charges in a post to social media Thursday evening. 

‘No one is above the law. Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people. We will follow the facts in this case.’ 

The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House and Department of Justice for further comment. 

The indictment marks Comey as the first former senior government official to be prosecuted in relation to one of Trump’s main grievances: the finished investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. 

Trump and his supporters have consistently criticized that investigation as a ‘hoax’ and ‘witch hunt,’ despite various government reports confirming Moscow’s interference to support the Republican’s campaign.

The criminal case is expected to heighten fears that the Justice Department under Bondi, a Trump loyalist, is being used in seeking investigations and now prosecutions of public figures whom the president considers his political adversaries.

Former FBI Director James Comey is facing indictment by the Department of Justice for one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction

Comey has been a staunch critic of Donald Trump ‘s administration since the president fired him in 2017

The filing was made as the White House takes unprecedented steps to influence the Justice Department’s operations, blurring the line between law and politics in an agency where independent prosecutorial decisions are a foundational principle.

Comey was fired months into Trump´s first administration and has long been a top target for Trump supporters seeking retribution. 

He was singled out by name in a Saturday social media post in which Trump complained directly to Bondi that she had not yet brought charges against him.

The following evening, Trump said in a Truth Social post aimed at the attorney general that department investigations had not resulted in prosecutions. 

He said he would nominate Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide, to serve as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. 

She has been one of Trump’s personal lawyers and does not have experience as a federal prosecutor.

‘We can´t delay any longer, it´s killing our reputation and credibility,’ Trump wrote, referencing the fact that he himself had been indicted and impeached multiple times. ‘JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!’

The office that filed the case against Comey, the Eastern District of Virginia, was thrown into turmoil last week following the resignation of chief prosecutor Erik Siebert under pressure to bring charges against another Trump target, New York Attorney General Letitia James, in a mortgage fraud investigation.

Halligan had rushed to present the case to a grand jury this week. Prosecutors were evaluating whether Comey lied to Congress during testimony on Sept. 30, 2020, and they had until Tuesday to bring a case before the five-year statute of limitations expired. 

The push to move forward came even as prosecutors in the office had detailed in a memo concerns about the pursuit of an indictment.

Trump has for years railed against both a finding by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia preferred him to Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election and the criminal investigation that tried to determine whether his campaign had conspired with Moscow to sway the outcome of that race. 

Prosecutors led by special counsel Robert Mueller did not establish that Trump or his associates criminally colluded with Russia, but they did find that Trump´s campaign had welcomed Moscow´s assistance.

Trump has seized on the fact that Mueller´s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign and the Kremlin colluded, and that there were significant errors and omissions made by the FBI in wiretap applications, to claim vindication. 

A yearslong investigation into potential misconduct during the Russia investigation, was conducted by a different special counsel, John Durham. 

That produced three criminal cases, including against an FBI lawyer, but not against senior government officials.

The criminal case against Comey does not concern the substance of the Russia investigation. 

Rather, it accuses him of having lied to a Senate committee in his 2020 appearance when he said he never authorized anyone to serve as an anonymous source to a reporter about the investigation.

Trump´s administration is trying to cast the Russia investigation as the outgrowth of an effort under Democratic President Barack Obama to overhype Moscow´s interference in the election and to undermine the legitimacy of Trump´s victory.

Administration officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, have declassified a series of documents meant to chip away at the strength of an Obama-era intelligence assessment published in January 2017 that said Moscow had engaged in a broad campaign of interference at the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Comey has for years been a prime Trump antagonist. Comey was a senior Justice Department official in Republican President George W. Bush´s administration, was picked by Obama to lead the FBI in 2013 and was director when the bureau opened the Russia investigation.

Comey´s relationship with Trump was strained from the start and was exacerbated when Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private White House dinner to pledge personal loyalty to the president. That overture so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.

Trump fired Comey in May 2017, an action later investigated by Mueller for potential obstruction of justice.

After being let go, Comey authorized a close friend to share with a reporter the substance of an unclassified memo that documented an Oval Office request from Trump to shut down an FBI investigation into his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. 

Trump and his allies later branded Comey a leaker, with the president even accusing him of treason. 

Comey himself has called Trump ‘ego driven’ and likened him to a mafia don.

The Justice Department, during Trump´s first term, declined to prosecute Comey over his handling of his memos. 

The department´s inspector general did issue a harshly critical report in 2019 that said Comey violated FBI policies, including by failing to return the documents to the FBI after he was dismissed and for sharing them with his personal lawyers without FBI permission.

Earlier this year, the department fired Comey´s daughter, Maurene Comey, from her job as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. 

She has since sued, saying the termination was carried out without any explanation and was done for political reasons.