President Donald Trump previewed that more perceived political opponents may be pursued by the Justice Department after former FBI Director James Comey was indicted for allegedly lying to Congress.
“It’s not a list, but I think there’ll be others,” Trump told reporters Friday at the White House.
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Trump contended that “corrupt radical-left Democrats” “weaponized the Justice Department like nobody in history,” but he described Comey, who was a registered Republican, as being “worse than a Democrat.”
“There’ll be others,” he repeated. “What they’ve done is terrible, and so I would, I hope there, frankly, I hope there are others because you can’t let this happen to a country.”
Comey was indicted late Thursday after a federal grand jury in Virginia charged him with lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding over testimony he provided in 2020, in which he denied he leaked information in 2016 to the Wall Street Journal regarding his investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The charges were brought by the new interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, after her predecessor Erik Siebert resigned amid a pressure campaign by Trump for the office to prosecute his critics. The charges themselves have been criticized by career prosecutors because they are not considered to have a good chance of success in a trial.
But Trump defended the indictment on Friday, arguing it was a “pretty easy case” because Comey, whom he also called a “dirty cop,” “lied” and “didn’t think he’d get caught.”
“They did it with me for four years,” he said. “Before I came to office, I started hearing rumors about Russia. … It’s about justice. Really, it’s not revenge. It’s also about the fact that you can’t let this go on. They are sick, radical-left people, and they can’t get away with it.”
In a video posted to Instagram, Comey similarly defended himself, saying, “My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way.
“We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either,” he said. “Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant, and she’s right. But I’m not afraid, and I hope you’re not either. I hope instead you are engaged, you are paying attention, and you will vote like your beloved country depends on it, which it does. My heart is broken for the Department of Justice, but I have great confidence in the federal judicial system, and I’m innocent. So let’s have a trial and keep the faith.”
Trump used the opportunity to speak with reporters as he departed the White House for the Ryder Cup to apportion responsibility for next week’s possible federal government shutdown to Democrats.
“We’re going to see if the radical-left Democrats want to shut it down. I mean, it’s up to them,” the president, accompanied by golfer granddaughter Kai Trump, said. “They want to shut it down because they want to give billions, ultimately, trillions of dollars, to illegal migrants, people that came into our country illegally. … They also want to have open borders. They want to have men and women in sports.”
Democrats want a federal government funding bill to include an extension of Obamacare tax credits, which are poised to expire at the end of this year. Without a funding deal, the government will shut down on Oct. 1.
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Trump additionally announced a possible peace deal between Israel and Hamas that “will get the hostages back.”
“It’s going to be a deal that will end the war,” he said. “It’s going to be peace.”