{"id":854264,"date":"2025-06-08T19:12:44","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T00:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/08\/james-comey-is-back-in-trumps-crosshairs-this-time-its-different\/"},"modified":"2025-06-08T19:12:44","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T00:12:44","slug":"james-comey-is-back-in-trumps-crosshairs-this-time-its-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/08\/james-comey-is-back-in-trumps-crosshairs-this-time-its-different\/","title":{"rendered":"James Comey is back in Trump’s crosshairs. This time, it’s different."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

James Comey, the polarizing former FBI director, walked into a Barnes & Noble in New York City, sat down on a three-legged stool\u00a0and began to extol the virtues of his new crime novel to the few dozen people who came to his book signing Monday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Days earlier, he sparked a firestorm on the right \u2014 and a Secret Service investigation \u2014 when he posted a photo on Instagram<\/a> that Donald Trump and senior administration officials insist <\/strong>was a call for the assassination of the president. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Now Comey, as talkative and confident as ever, was brushing aside the chance that he might face criminal charges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were total pros,\u201d Comey said of the Secret Service agents who interviewed him, adding of the brouhaha: \u201cMaybe it\u2019ll go away.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But while he was signing books, Trump\u2019s former defense lawyer Alina Habba, now the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey, announced that she has filed criminal charges<\/a> against Rep. Lamonica McIver, D-N.J., for her actions during a protest outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Newark.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The announcement underscored how differently the Justice Department has operated in the first four months of Trump\u2019s second term compared with the first four months of his first term. Trump loyalists \u2014 like Habba, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel \u2014 hold top law enforcement roles, and this administration has been even more aggressive in targeting political foes<\/a>, as well as universities<\/a> and law firms<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Comey downplayed the investigation of his Instagram post as a \u201cdistraction,\u201d the indictment of McIver put into stark relief how he may not be as safe from prosecution \u2014 or at least a long-running criminal probe \u2014 as he indicated Monday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump \u201cis surrounded by people willing to cater to his worst instincts,\u201d said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University and the B. Kenneth Simon Chair in constitutional studies\u00a0at the libertarian Cato Institute.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI was no fan of Jeff Sessions or Bill Barr, but it seemed to me that they had some limits,\u201d Somin added, referring to Trump\u2019s first-term attorneys general.\u00a0\u201cIt seems like Pam Bondi has a lot fewer limits.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Not my first rodeo\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0<\/h2>\n

Hours before he showed up at the Barnes & Noble, Comey appeared on MSNBC for his first interview since the Instagram post last Thursday. \u00a0<\/p>\n

It showed seashells arranged in the shape of \u201c8647\u201d on the beach. Trump is the 47th president, and 86 can informally mean \u201cto get rid of,\u201d according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Comey said he never considered that the post would generate controversy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI really thought that I was done,\u201d he said. \u201cI was in another life. I was a grandfather and an author wearing sweaters and jeans and then went for a walk on the beach and posted a silly picture of shells that I thought was a clever way to express a political viewpoint.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd actually,\u00a0I still think it\u00a0is. I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0see it the way some people are still saying it,\u201d Comey added. \u201cBut again, I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0want any part of any violence.\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0never been associated with violence, and so\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0why I took it down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump fired Comey in 2017 amid\u00a0the FBI\u2019s investigation into whether the\u00a02016 Trump campaign coordinated with Russia. He was investigated by John Durham, a special counsel appointed during the first Trump administration to investigate the propriety of the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe, and he was not charged with a crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not my first rodeo,\u201d Comey said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

But he did express dismay at the Trump administration\u2019s targeting of political opponents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the real problems we have in this country right now is the use of the president\u2019s power aiming at individuals who don\u2019t have my background or experience,\u201d he said. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy thing, to me and I hope to everyone else, is just a distraction that goes away in a weekend. But there\u2019s something much more important going on here \u2014 the use of power to aim at individuals, eroding the rule of law.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other investigations<\/h2>\n

Last month, Justice Department and FBI officials opened a federal criminal investigation of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who won a $454 million civil fraud judgment<\/a> against Trump last year, alleging she made false statements on a mortgage application.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security said this month that a former federal official who denied Trump\u2019s claims of 2020 election fraud, Chris Krebs, is the subject of an unspecified federal law enforcement investigation<\/a>. <\/p>\n

And the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the District of Columbia\u00a0has opened an investigation into Andrew Cuomo, the former New York governor who is now running to be the mayor of New York City, a person familiar with the matter told NBC News late Tuesday. The New York Times <\/a>was first to report on the probe, which it said focuses on Cuomo’s congressional testimony about the pandemic. <\/p>\n

All deny any wrongdoing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

McIver, the New Jersey congresswoman, was charged with two counts of \u201cassaulting, resisting, and impeding\u201d two federal immigration agents at a protest outside a migrant detention facility in Newark on May 9. She faces a maximum penalty of eight years in prison if she is convicted,\u00a0but\u00a0sentences are usually well below the maximum.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s political intimidation, and I\u2019m looking forward to my day in court,\u201d McIver\u00a0told reporters Tuesday\u00a0in Washington.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Federal investigations can drag on for years, damaging people\u2019s reputations and depleting their finances. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can hurt you by investigating you for three years,\u201d said a former federal prosecutor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question is do you want to hurt people or convict people?\u201d the former prosecutor added. \u201cThe first thing is easy. The second thing is hard. You need evidence.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pressed about the Secret Service investigation in his television interview, Comey said the judiciary is the only branch of government left that will protect him from a dubious prosecution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in our judiciary,\u201d Comey said. \u201cI believe in that one remaining leg of our three-legged stool \u2014 that independent judiciary \u2014\u00a0is alive and well, and that gives me great comfort.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

David Rohde
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James Comey, the polarizing former FBI director, walked into a Barnes & Noble in New York City, sat down on a three-legged stool\u00a0and began to extol the virtues of his new crime novel to the few dozen people who came to his book signing Monday night.\u00a0 Days earlier, he sparked a firestorm on the right<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":854265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27073,1143],"tags":[20029,7692],"class_list":{"0":"post-854264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-comey","8":"category-james","9":"tag-comey","10":"tag-james"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}