Former FBI Director James Comey pleads not guilty in 1st court appearance

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Source: ABC

Former FBI Director James Comey has pleaded not guilty to both counts in a federal indictment.

He is charged with one count of false statements and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding.

The plea was entered by his attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who asked for a jury trial.

Comey was in court Wednesday for the first time since he was indicted last month.

Comey was joined inside the Alexandria, Virginia, courthouse by his lawyers David Kelley and Jessica Carmichael.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/former-fbi-director-james-comey-make-1st-court/story?id=126322951&cid=social_twitter_abcn

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No perp walk

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1. BREAKING: Comey pleads not guilty Here's what happened at arraignment

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2. Deadline Legal Blog-James Comey pleads not guilty to indictment secured by Trump loyalist

Former Trump personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan obtained the indictment sought by the president. Now she needs to prove the case.

James Comey pleads not guilty to indictment secured by Trump loyalist www.msnbc.com/deadline-whi...

— Minka (@minkab.bsky.social) 2025-10-08T14:40:36.464Z

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/james-comey-pleads-not-guilty-trump-halligan-rcna236313

James Comey pleaded not guilty Wednesday to criminal charges that were demanded by President Donald Trump and secured by one of his former personal lawyers, who has never prosecuted a case before. The administration installed Lindsey Halligan to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia after the previous head, Erik Siebert, was forced out after he resisted charging Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, another political opponent Trump wants charged.

The federal indictment on which the former FBI director was arraigned in a Virginia courtroom outside Washington on Wednesday is the product of a grand jury presentation Halligan made herself last month — over the objection of career prosecutors — as the statute of limitations window was closing. Further suggesting that her new colleagues think the case lacks merit is that Halligan was the only lawyer for the government listed on the docket until Tuesday, when two federal prosecutors from North Carolina entered their appearances alongside her.

Grand jurors rejected one of the three counts Halligan presented but approved two others: one for allegedly lying to Congress and another for allegedly obstructing Congress.

Halligan’s theory of the case isn’t entirely clear from the indictment, which is somewhat vague and limited. But it centers on Comey’s September 2020 congressional testimony over whether he authorized anyone at the bureau to be an anonymous source in news reports related to an FBI investigation. The indictment accuses him of falsely stating that he hadn’t granted such authorization.

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3. Comey pleads not guilty at Alexandria federal courthouse to charges of lying to Congress

News
Comey pleads not guilty at Alexandria federal courthouse to charges of lying to Congress

By The Associated Press
Published October 8, 2025 at 10:09AM

{snip several pictures}

By ERIC TUCKER, ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Former FBI Director James Comey pleaded not guilty Wednesday to face a criminal case that has thrown a spotlight on the Justice Department’s efforts to target adversaries of President Donald Trump.

The arraignment is expected to be brief, but the moment is nonetheless loaded with significance given that the case has amplified concerns the Justice Department is being weaponized in pursuit of Trump’s political enemies and is operating at the behest of a White House determined to seek retribution for perceived wrongs against the president.

Comey entered a not guilty plea through his lawyer at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, to allegations that he lied to Congress five years go. The plea kick-starts a process of legal wrangling in which defense lawyers will almost certainly move to get the indictment dismissed before trial, possibly by arguing the case amounts to a selective or vindictive prosecution.

The indictment two weeks ago followed an extraordinary chain of events that saw Trump publicly implore Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against Comey and other perceived adversaries. The Republican president also replaced the veteran attorney who had been overseeing the investigation with Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide who had never previously served as a federal prosecutor. Halligan rushed to file charges before a legal deadline lapsed despite warnings from other lawyers in the office that the evidence was insufficient for an indictment.

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[Bayard]

4. Malicious prosecution

How does trump think that Comey personally wronged him?

He brings these dumbass cases, and we have to pay for them.

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5. Comey's challenge of Lindsey Halligan is the latest bid to derail Trump's top prosecutors

Halligan was not validly appointed. The statute of limitations has run on Comey's so-called crimes and if Halligan is disqualified, then the case against Comey goes away

On the one hand you just want to scream that she has no experience as a prosecutor, on the other hand leading a position with the descriptor "Trump's top" pretty much means the person is inexperienced and incompetent, and probably doesn't legally hold the position.

You win this round CNN.

— Jon (@jonvw4.bsky.social) 2025-10-09T13:57:08.910Z

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/09/politics/trump-halligan-doj-appointment-challenged-comey

Before FBI Director James Comey heads to trial in January over charges of lying to Congress, his team plans to put the prosecutors — and specifically President Donald Trump’s handpicked interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan — on the defensive.

Comey’s strategy, as outlined in court on Wednesday, will focus on attacking Halligan’s authority as the US Attorney of the Eastern District of Virginia as part of efforts to convince the court to dismiss the charges against him.

The coming challenge to remove Halligan from the case is just one in a wave of recent criminal defense lawyers around the country calling into question Trump’s use of top prosecutors who haven’t been confirmed by the Senate. Some of those challenges have been successful.

Halligan may make the Comey case especially vulnerable, in that she was the only prosecutor to take the indictment through a grand jury, and was sworn in by the administration to lead her office just days before......

Ed Whelan, a conservative legal commenter, has been writing in the National Review about why he thinks Halligan, who signed off on Comey’s indictment, doesn’t have prosecutorial authority.

“It seems highly doubtful that Lindsey Halligan has been validly appointed as United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia,” Whelan wrote in the National Review recently. “If her appointment is invalid, so is her indictment of Comey.”