The former director of the FBI Comey pleads not guilty of the federal accusations: NPR

Former FBI director James Comey pleaded not guilty of accusations of false declarations and obstacles to convention proceedings.

Comey pleaded guilty via his lawyer Pat Fitzgerald during his indictment before the Federal Court on Wednesday in Alexandria, Virginia. The judge in charge of the case set the date of the trial on January 5, 2026 and Comey should be released without conditions.

“It is the honor of my life to represent Jim Comey in this case,” said Fitzgerald at the courthouse, where Comey’s family also attended the indictment.

The former FBI director, who has long been one of President Trump’s most virulent criticism, was charged last month from two accusation leading from his testimony to the Senate judicial commission in September 2020. The Ministry of Justice obtained the indictment only a few days after Trump demanded a faster pace on the part of the prosecutors in their investigation against Comey.

The highest federal prosecutor in Northern Virginia, Erik Siebert, had questioned the solidity of the evidence against Comey.

The Trump administration then replaced Siebert by Lindsey Halligan, a White House assistant who was previously Trump’s personal lawyer. Halligan, who obtained the accusation of the Grand Jury against Comey, called on Northern Carolina prosecutors to help him in the case.

Comey lawyers said they were planning to deposit two series of requests to classify the case, centered on accusations of vindictive or selective proceedings, and that Halligan had been appointed illegally.

They can also include allegations of “scandalous driving” and problems with the process of the great jury that charged Comey last month.

Trump has been attacking Comey for a long time, accusing the former FBI chief of having appointed a special prosecutor who investigated the contacts between Russia and Trump’s campaign in 2016 during most of the president’s first mandate.