Former FBI Director James Comey, who was indicted Friday on two federal charges alleging that he issued a false statement to Congress and obstructed justice, previously has called for those who lie under oath to face consequences.
For example, Comey once railed against lifestyle icon Martha Stewart, who was convicted of misleading federal investigators, and said her case served as an example to deter others from lying to officials.
‘The Stewart experience reminded me that the justice system is an honor system,’ Comey wrote in his book, ‘A Higher Loyalty,’ released in 2018. ‘We really can’t always tell when people are lying or hiding documents, so when we are able to prove it, we simply must do so as a message to everyone. People must fear the consequences of lying in the justice system or the system can’t work.’
‘There once was a time when most people worried about going to hell if they violated an oath taken in the name of God,’ Comey wrote. ‘That divine deterrence has slipped away from our modern cultures. In its place, people must fear going to jail…To protect the institution of justice, and reinforce a culture of truth-telling, she had to be prosecuted.’
Comey served as the lead prosecutor who indicted Stewart on charges of obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI in 2003, which stemmed from the FBI’s insider trading investigation into Stewart’s friend’s company, ImClone.
Stewart ultimately was convicted on four counts of obstructing justice and lying to investigators. She was sentenced to five months in prison.
Comey’s statement in his book aligns with those he made at the time. After the charges were filed against Stewart in 2003, Comey said Stewart’s ‘case is about lying — lying to the FBI, lying to the SEC and investors.’
‘That is conduct that will not be tolerated. Martha Stewart is being prosecuted not because of who she is, but what she did,’ Comey said at a news conference in 2003.
Stewart took a swipe at Comey in her Netflix documentary called ‘Martha,’ which was released October 2024.
‘It was so horrifying to me that I had to go through that to be a trophy for these idiots in the U.S. Attorney’s office,’ Stewart said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Comey for comment and has yet to receive a reply.
Trump–Comey vendetta back in the spotlight
Meanwhile, Comey’s feud with President Donald Trump is also back in the spotlight following Comey’s indictment.
The two men have gone head-to-head against each other for years, dating back to Trump’s first administration amid the FBI’s investigation into whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election, and they have continued to trade barbs during Trump’s second term.
While Trump has lobbed out terms like ‘sick person’ and ‘untruthful slime ball,’ Comey also has hurled criticism against the president and said he’s not fit for office.
For example, Comey described Trump as someone who ‘lies constantly about matters big and small and insists the American people believe it,’ and questioned whether Trump embodied U.S. values during an interview in April 2018 with ABC News ahead of the release of his book, ‘A Higher Loyalty.’
‘I don’t think he’s medically unfit to be president — I think he’s morally unfit to be president … that’s not a policy statement,’ Comey told ABC News. ‘Again, I don’t care what your views are on guns, or immigration, or taxes. There is something more important than that, that should unite all of us, and that is our president must embody respect and adhere to the values that are at the core of this country, the most important being truth. This president is not able to do that.’
That same month Comey attracted the ire of Trump, who accused Comey of being a ‘terrible’ FBI director and that it was his ‘great honor’ to fire Comey.
‘James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR. Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH,’ Trump said in a social media post in April 2018.
‘He is a weak and untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI…It was my great honor to fire James Comey!’ Trump said.
Trump fired Comey in May 2017, just after Comey revealed in March 2017 before the House Intelligence Committee that the FBI had launched a criminal investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 election.
At the time, Trump said that he had ousted Comey due to his handling of an investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
Comey, who previously identified as a Republican, went on to endorse former President Joe Biden in the 2020 election. He also called for ‘everyone who cares about the rule of law and America’s indispensable role in the world’ to get behind former Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee during the 2024 election when she went up against Trump.
‘Kamala Harris made me feel like it’s finally morning in America,’ Comey wrote in a post on X in August 2024.
More recently, Comey and Trump sparred after the former FBI director posted a photo on Instagram in May depicting shells arranged on a beach to spell out ’86 47.’ The term ’86’ can mean getting rid of something or someone, and Trump is the 47th president.
Following backlash from Trump allies who interpreted Comey’s post as a threat to remove Trump, Comey said that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind and he opposed ‘violence of any kind.’
Still, Trump didn’t buy Comey’s explanation.
‘He knew exactly what that meant,’ Trump told Fox News. ‘A child knows what that meant. If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination.’
Following Comey’s indictment, Trump said in a social media post Friday that Comey is ‘one of the worst human beings this country has ever been exposed to,’ and labeled the former FBI director a ‘DIRTY COP.’
The charges against Comey are tied to his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2020 regarding the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Meanwhile, Comey has denied the allegations leveled in the charges against him, and said that he is ‘not afraid.’
‘My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump, but we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way,’ Comey said in an Instagram video. ‘We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either. Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant, and she’s right.’
Fox News’ Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.