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() President Donald Trump said on Friday that the prosecution of former FBI director James Comey is just the start of efforts to investigate his opponents.
“There will be others, look, that’s my opinion. They weaponized the Justice Department like nobody in history,” he said. “What they’ve done is terrible, and so I would, I hope, frankly, I hope they’re other. You can’t let this happen to a country.”
Trump has long vowed to get revenge on his opponents and has been particularly focused on those involved in efforts to investigate or prosecute him based on his actions during his first term.
The Comey indictment comes just days after Trump publicly pressured Attorney General Pam Bondi to go after the former FBI director, along with other political adversaries.
Comey is facing charges of making a false statement and obstructing a criminal proceeding, both of which he denies.
The charges were filed by newly appointed interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, a former personal lawyer for Trump with no prosecutorial experience.
Halligan was appointed after the previous U.S. attorney, Erik Sieber, resigned over fears he would be fired for failing to prosecute Comey. Other attorneys in the office reportedly tried to convince Halligan not to bring charges against Comey as well.
By directly encouraging the Justice Department to go after specific individuals, Trump has broken precedent when it comes to the independence of the department.
Traditionally, presidents do not comment on investigations being conducted by the department, nor do they interfere directly with the work being done by the department, which is traditionally afforded independence from the White House.
Trump has sought to compare the case against Comey to the charges filed against him on both the federal and state levels.
However, there are key differences, including the fact that President Joe Biden did not make public statements encouraging his predecessor’s prosecution. The federal cases against Trump were also brought by an independent special counsel, not an attorney associated with Biden. There has also been no evidence that Biden worked to influence state-level prosecutors who filed charges against Trump.
In addition to advocating for charges to be filed against Comey, Trump has also frequently named other political foes that he would like to see prosecuted, including New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.