Former FBI Director James Comey
Alex Edelman | AFP | Getty Images
Former FBI Director James Comey pleaded not guilty on Wednesday morning to federal criminal charges in Virginia that President Donald Trump had sought.
A judge set Comey’s trial to begin on Jan. 5.
Comey’s plea came as he made his first appearance in the case, where he is accused of making a false statement, and of obstruction of a congressional proceeding during testimony to a Senate committee in 2020.
Comey was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, where his defense attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, said that Comey wanted a jury trial.
Two federal prosecutors from North Carolina have been assigned to handle Comey’s case, which is seen as a sign that Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, had difficulty getting prosecutors in her own office to work on the case.
Halligan was put in that job by Trump shortly after her predecessor, Erik Siebert, resigned under pressure from Trump following Siebert’s reported reluctance to seek a grand jury indictment of Comey.
Comey, after being indicted in late September, said, “I am not afraid,” in an Instagram video response.
“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump,” Comey said in the video.
“But we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way. We will not live on our knees and you shouldn’t either.”
Comey, who was fired as FBI director by Trump in 2017, is accused of lying during testimony at the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, 2020.
That day, Comey denied authorizing someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about a probe of Hillary Clinton and her emails when she was the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee.
This is developing news. Check back for updates.
