Pam Bondi’s Justice Department in Uproar After Comey Indictment

The Justice Department is in an uproar against Attorney General Pam Bondi’s indictment of former FBI director James Comey.

Comey, who has drawn the ire of President Trump ever since he led the Russiagate investigation in 2016, has been charged with one count of making a false statement during a Senate hearing and one count of obstructing Congress. Bondi’s office also tried to get Comey on a second charge of making a false statement to Congress, but that was struck down. If convicted, Comey could face up to five years in prison.

But even Bondi’s own staff think this is a weak move designed to make Trump feel better in spite of the fact that the charges will be hard to prove.

“What I am hearing from DoJ sources: The Comey indictment is among the worst abuses in DOJ history,” MSNBC’s Ken Dilanian wrote Thursday on X. “Shocking. It’s hard to overstate how a big a moment this is.”

“Everybody is in shock,” former DOJ Director of Public Affairs Xochitl Hinojosa told CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront. “It doesn’t surprise them, though, because this is the way the Justice Department has been. Career officials have largely been either pushed out or silenced and are not in meetings about major decisions about cases.”

Hinojosa also commented on Bondi’s reasoning that “no one is above the law” in indicting Comey.

“That is what we all believe in, in that building,” Hinojosa added. “But the reality is that the actions over the last nine months are not the case. Donald Trump was charged on 44 counts. He is the sitting president of the United States.... And now Donald Trump is going after his political enemies.”

“I think this is a tragic day for America,” former White House lawyer Ty Cobb told CNN. “What we have here is a clear vindictive prosecution, a clear selective prosecution. We have a president for the first time in history ordering his Attorney General to indict his enemies,” Cobb said. “And the Attorney General, instead of being the independent force that she’s supposed to be saying: ‘Yes, sir. How fast can I get that done for you?”

Even Bondi herself seems to be feeling hesitant about going after Comey. CNN reported on Thursday that Bondi was apprehensive at best about the indictment, and some of her attorneys indicated similar feelings in a written memo. Bondi denies all of this.

Regardless, it’s clear that this indictment is the result of Trump personally calling for it, rather than some stringent, by the book investigation. Only time will tell how it’ll all play out.