The judge randomly assigned to the case, Michael Nachmanoff, was nominated to the bench by former president Joe Biden’s Democratic administration and is a former chief federal defender. Known for methodical preparation and a cool temperament, the judge and his background have already drawn Trump’s attention, with the president deriding him as a “Crooked Joe Biden appointed Judge.”
Besides Comey, the Justice Department is also investigating other foes of the president, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California.
Several Comey family members arrived in court ahead of the arraignment, including his daughter Maurene, who was fired by the Justice Department earlier this year from her position as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan, as well as Troy Edwards jnr, a son-in-law of Comey’s who minutes after Comey was indicted resigned his job as a prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia – the same office that filed the charges.
Trump and Comey’s fraught relationship
The indictment was the latest chapter in a long-broken relationship between Trump and Comey.
Trump arrived in office in January 2017 as Comey, appointed to the FBI director job by President Barack Obama four years earlier, was overseeing an investigation into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The dynamic was fraught from the start, with Comey briefing Trump weeks before he took office on the existence of uncorroborated and sexually salacious gossip in a dossier of opposition research compiled by a former British spy.
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In their first several private interactions, Comey would later reveal, Trump asked his FBI director to pledge his loyalty to him and to drop an FBI investigation into his administration’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Comey said Trump also asked him to announce that Trump himself was not under investigation as part of the broader inquiry into Russian election interference, something Comey did not do.
Comey was abruptly fired in May 2017 while at an event in Los Angeles, with Trump later saying he was thinking about “this Russia thing” when he decided to terminate him. The firing was investigated by Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller as an act of potential obstruction of justice.
Comey in 2018 published a memoir, A Higher Loyalty, that painted Trump in deeply unflattering ways, likening him to a mafia don and characterising him as unethical and “untethered to truth.”
Trump, for his part, continued to angrily vent at Comey as the Russia investigation led by Mueller dominated headlines for the next two years and shadowed his first administration. On social media, he repeatedly claimed Comey should face charges for “treason” – an accusation Comey dismissed as “dumb lies” – and called him an “untruthful slime ball.”
AP
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