President Donald Trump’s second-term crusade against his perceived enemies has reached a fever pitch, with legal and political shockwaves rippling through Washington and beyond. On October 9, 2025, leaks to ABC News revealed that insiders at the Department of Justice (DOJ) are questioning the validity of the prosecution against former FBI Director James Comey. This revelation comes on the heels of inside sources telling MSNBC that a senior prosecutor is resisting an indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James, citing the weakness of the case. Meanwhile, Trump’s demands for prosecutions have grown more strident, with calls for the jailing of Comey, James, and even the governor of Illinois.
Former federal prosecutor Kristy Parker, now counsel at Protect Democracy, weighed in on these developments during an interview on October 9, 2025. She described Trump’s efforts as “baseless” and suggested that resistance within the DOJ could be a crucial bulwark against a slide into lawlessness. “What we’re seeing is a remarkable pushback from career prosecutors who are unwilling to proceed with cases that lack merit,” Parker argued, highlighting a rare moment of institutional resilience amid mounting political pressure.
James Comey’s journey to the center of this political maelstrom has been both dramatic and, at times, surreal. According to CNN, Comey was not always atop Trump’s enemies list. In fact, their first private meeting at Trump Tower in January 2017 was cordial, with Trump telling Comey, “You’ve had one heck of a year,” and praising his handling of the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server as “honorable.” But this fleeting moment of goodwill vanished as soon as Comey briefed Trump on the infamous Steele dossier, which alleged collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election. In his 2018 memoir, Comey recalled the encounter as a turning point, writing, “As I spoke, I felt a strange out-of-body experience, as if I were watching myself speak to the new president about prostitutes in Russia.”
That conversation set the stage for a years-long feud, punctuated by headline-grabbing events and mutual recriminations. Comey’s July 2016 press conference, in which he criticized Clinton for being “extremely careless” with classified emails but concluded that “no reasonable prosecutor” would indict her, infuriated both parties. Trump seized on the announcement to claim the system was rigged, while Clinton’s camp blamed Comey for damaging her campaign. “There’s plenty of us that, to this day, feel that, but for the letter that Jim Comey sent to the Hill inappropriately about her email server, 11 days prior to the election, that the election outcome might have gone differently,” Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon told CNN. Yet, as Fallon added, “none of that … justifies what has happened” to Comey since.
After the election, Trump’s relationship with Comey grew increasingly fraught. Trump demanded loyalty from Comey in a now-famous January 2017 dinner, to which the FBI director replied he could offer only “honesty.” The tension escalated after National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigned amid the Russia scandal. According to special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report, Trump asked Comey to “let this go, to let Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Comey documented these conversations, a move that would later play a crucial role in the unfolding drama.
The situation reached a boiling point on May 9, 2017, when Comey was abruptly fired while visiting the Los Angeles FBI field office. Trump initially cited recommendations from DOJ officials regarding Comey’s handling of the Clinton probe, but later told NBC’s Lester Holt that he would have fired Comey regardless, calling the Russia investigation “a made-up story.” Trump’s subsequent veiled threat on Twitter—“James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”—fueled further speculation and animosity.
Comey responded by sharing memos of his Trump conversations with a friend, who then provided their contents to The New York Times. The resulting media firestorm led to the appointment of special counsel Mueller. Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8, 2017, became a national spectacle, drawing an audience of 20 million Americans. “I walked with the leaders of the committee down the long private hall behind the dais, turned left, and stepped into something surreal,” Comey later wrote. “Nothing compared to this scene.”
The fallout from Comey’s actions continued to reverberate. In June 2018, the Justice Department’s inspector general released a 568-page report excoriating Comey for “extraordinary and insubordinate” behavior during the Clinton email investigation. The report found that Comey had flouted DOJ norms but confirmed there was no evidence of political bias—a point Trump ignored as he declared Comey “the worst leader, by far, in the history of the FBI.”
Comey’s legal troubles intensified in September 2025, when he was charged with a two-count criminal indictment for allegedly lying to Congress in 2020 about leaks related to the Clinton investigation. At his arraignment in Virginia on October 8, 2025, Comey pleaded not guilty, with a trial date set for January 5, 2026. The indictment centers on Comey’s testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he denied authorizing anyone to serve as an anonymous source for news reports about an FBI investigation. The DOJ alleges that Comey “knew” he had authorized a contact—believed to be his friend Dan Richman—to speak to the press.
Comey’s journey from FBI director to criminal defendant has been marked by extraordinary public scrutiny and partisan weaponization. As CNN’s presidential historian Douglas Brinkley put it, “Trump is the ultimate pugilist and Comey is his punching bag, because Comey pricks away at Trump’s ego and paranoia.” The saga has left both men indelibly linked in the public imagination, as Brinkley noted: “History will look at them both with jaded eyes, over the fact that these two grown-ups put their country through so many nauseating news cycles of schoolyard one-upmanship.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s retribution campaign has not been limited to Comey. His demands for prosecutions of Letitia James and the governor of Illinois have drawn sharp criticism, with DOJ insiders reportedly resisting what they see as politically motivated cases. Kristy Parker’s assessment that “resistance inside the DOJ might slow our slide into lawlessness” underscores the high stakes of this moment for American democracy.
As the nation braces for Comey’s January trial and the continued fallout from Trump’s prosecutorial demands, the battle lines are drawn not just between individuals, but over the very principles that underpin the rule of law. In this fraught landscape, the integrity of the justice system—and the willingness of its stewards to stand firm—may prove decisive.
