Justice Department secures second indictment against former FBI Director James Comey

The Justice Department has moved again against James Comey, reviving one of the most politically sensitive prosecutions of the Trump era and reopening questions about how federal power is being used against a former FBI director.

A federal grand jury returned the second indictment on Tuesday, April 28, 2026, according to CNN, although the specific charges were not immediately clear. The case lands in the middle of a long-running clash between Donald Trump and a former law enforcement chief he has repeatedly targeted as an antagonist in the Russia investigation.

Comey was first indicted on September 25, 2025, in federal court in Northern Virginia on two felony counts, making a false statement to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding. Prosecutors said the allegations stemmed from his September 30, 2020 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Comey denied wrongdoing. The earlier case made him the first former FBI director criminally prosecuted in connection with Trump’s grievances over the Russia inquiry, a step that immediately raised alarm inside and outside the Justice Department about whether politics had overtaken prosecutorial judgment.

The first indictment also arrived after Trump had publicly pressed federal prosecutors to pursue Comey and other perceived enemies. Lindsey Halligan, then the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, announced the charges, while Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel praised the case. That combination of presidential pressure and senior Justice Department support turned the prosecution into more than a criminal matter; it became a test of whether federal law enforcement could still be seen as independent when the target was a longtime Trump adversary.

The case later unraveled in court. Justice Department officials later acknowledged that not every grand juror saw the final version of the indictment, and a federal judge dismissed the Comey case on November 24, 2025, along with a separate case against New York Attorney General Letitia James, on grounds tied to the U.S. attorney appointment issue. The dismissal did not end the political fallout. Instead, it deepened concerns that the prosecution had been built on unstable procedural ground and had become another flashpoint in the widening conflict between Trump-era officials and federal law enforcement.

The second indictment suggests that dispute is still alive. For the Justice Department, the stakes extend beyond Comey himself. Another attempt to prosecute a former FBI director will intensify claims of politicized enforcement unless prosecutors can show that the case rests on a solid factual and legal foundation, not on the partisan pressure that has shadowed it from the start.