{"id":87903,"date":"2025-09-27T01:56:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T01:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/87903\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T01:56:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T01:56:14","slug":"trump-says-other-opponents-will-be-targeted-after-charges-are-filed-against-comey-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/87903\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says other opponents will be targeted after charges are filed against Comey \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US president Donald Trump<\/a> has signalled that his administration will launch prosecutions against more political opponents, just hours after the US Department of Justice filed criminal charges against former FBI director James Comey<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Asked about the indictment \u2013 a charging document \u2013 on Friday morning, the US president said that he had no list of who will be targeted next, but \u201cthere will be others\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese were corrupt, radical-left Democrats,\u201d Mr Trump said as he prepared to travel to the Ryder Cup golf competition on Long Island, New York. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about justice. Really, it\u2019s not revenge,\u201d he added, repeating previous remarks that he had been the target of a political witch-hunt. \u201cThey went after me for four years.\u201d<\/p>\n

The justice department filed charges against Mr Comey late on Thursday after pressure from Mr Trump to prosecute the former FBI director, who investigated contacts between the president\u2019s 2016 campaign and Russia. <\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer FBI director James Comey. Photograph: Andrew Harnik\/AP<\/p>\n

It said it had obtained a grand jury indictment in a federal court in Virginia against Mr Comey, accusing him of \u201cserious crimes related to the disclosure of sensitive information\u201d.<\/p>\n

Comprising members of the public who are typically registered voters, a grand jury hears evidence presented by a prosecutor and determines whether there is enough evidence to prosecute a person and whether there is probable cause to believe a crime has been committed.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump on Friday did not identify potential future targets, but on Thursday he named billionaire progressive donors George Soros and Reid Hoffman as members of the \u201cradical left\u201d that could be investigated. <\/p>\n

Last weekend he urged attorney general Pam Bondi to take action against Democratic senator Adam Schiff and New York attorney general Letitia James.<\/p>\n

The indictment against Mr Comey cites his testimony to a US Senate committee in 2020 as the basis for charges of lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding.<\/p>\n

The Department of Justice\u2019s indictment of Mr Comey marks a dramatic escalation in Mr Trump\u2019s move against perceived adversaries. It has also deepened concerns that Mr Trump is breaching a long-standing precedent that Department of Justice prosecutions are handled at arm\u2019s length from the White House, which has been the norm since Richard Nixon\u2019s Watergate scandal in the 1970s. <\/p>\n

Mr Comey responded to his indictment in a video posted on social media. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump. But we couldn\u2019t imagine ourselves living any other way. We will not live on our knees and you shouldn\u2019t either,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have great confidence in the federal judicial system and I\u2019m innocent. So let\u2019s have a trial and keep the faith,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Mr Comey\u2019s arraignment has been set for October 9th in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, according to the court docket.<\/p>\n

The charges come days after Mr Trump picked Lindsey Halligan, his former personal lawyer, to lead the US attorney\u2019s office for the Eastern District of Virginia, where the Department of Justice obtained the indictment against Mr Comey.<\/p>\n

The charging document does not bear the signature of any career prosecutors at the US attorney\u2019s office and was signed only by Ms Halligan. She is also the only justice department official listed for the case on the court docket.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis kind of interference is a dangerous abuse of power,\u201d Mark Warner, the Democratic senator from Virginia, said in a statement on Thursday.<\/p>\n

FBI director Kash Patel on Friday sought to dispel accusations of political interference. \u201cThe wildly false accusations attacking this FBI for the politicization of law enforcement comes from the same bankrupt media that sold the world on Russia Gate \u2013 it\u2019s hypocrisy on steroids,\u201d he wrote in a post on X.<\/p>\n

The allegations against Mr Comey centre on the former FBI director\u2019s testimony before the Senate judiciary committee on September 30th, 2020, when he was questioned by Republican senator Ted Cruz about whether he authorised anyone at the FBI to leak information to the press.<\/p>\n

Mr Comey said he stood by prior testimony denying he gave that authorisation. His statement conflicted with separate testimony by former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who said Mr Comey had in effect done so.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump fired Mr Comey as head of the FBI in 2017 as he was overseeing an inquiry into contacts between Mr Trump\u2019s presidential campaign and Russian officials.<\/p>\n

His dismissal led to the appointment of Robert Mueller, who had previously led the FBI, as special counsel to take over the investigation. Mr Mueller ultimately found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow, and the president condemned the inquiry as a \u201cwitch-hunt\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u2013 Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump has signalled that his administration will launch prosecutions against more political opponents, just hours…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,356,712,13,14,6,56888,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-87903","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-fbi","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-james-comey","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-world","24":"tag-world-news","25":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}