On Thursday night, the Justice Department indicted former FBI Director James Comey — accusing him of having lied to Congress during sworn testimony.

For me, a journalist who covers declining democracies, this set off some pretty obvious alarm bells. President Donald Trump had already openly called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute Comey, one of his most prominent critics, but there she was hampered by what looked like a total lack of evidence. Just this morning, ABC News reported that attorneys in Virginia’s Eastern District had investigated Comey for two months but found insufficient cause to support an indictment. That such an indictment was filed anyway feels a lot like a vindictive effort by an authoritarian president to wield law against his enemies.

But hey, I thought — ma

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