For years, Donald Trump has demanded that criminal charges be filed against former FBI Director James Comey. Now the president has gotten what he wanted. Yesterday evening, well after the federal courts usually close their doors, a grand jury in Virginia handed up an indictment alleging that Comey lied when testifying before Congress in September 2020. The news was first announced (how else?) in a post on X by the Trump ally Laura Loomer.

The charges represent a dangerous step in Trump’s attempt to further consolidate power, while also being a total farce and a potentially historic embarrassment. They are not even about the FBI’s investigation of Russian election interference in 2016, Trump’s main grievance against Comey and the original sin, in the president’s mind, of the “deep state.”

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