Ex-FBI chief James Comey faces criminal charges as Trump targets political foes

US president Donald Trump’s campaign of retribution against his perceived political enemies reached new heights after his justice department brought criminal charges against former FBI director James Comey.

Mr Trump also expanded his efforts to classify certain liberal groups as “domestic terrorist organisations”.

Comey, a long-standing target of the president’s ire, was indicted by a grand jury for allegedly lying to US congress during testimony in 2020.

Hours earlier, Mr Trump signed a memorandum directing his administration to target backers of what he dubbed “left-wing terrorism” as he alleged a vast conspiracy by Democrat-aligned non-profit groups and activists to finance violent protests.

The new developments come just days after Mr Trump publicly demanded action from his attorney general and signalled that his former personal lawyer would serve as the top federal prosecutor in Virginia.

The developments marked a dramatic escalation of the American leader’s extraordinary use of the levers of presidential power to target his political rivals and his efforts to pressure the justice department to pursue investigations – and now prosecutions – of his perceived enemies.

It is an unabashed campaign that began soon after Mr Trump returned to office and one that critics see as an abuse of power that puts every American who dares to criticise their president at risk of retaliation.

Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the US senate intelligence committee, said: “Donald Trump has made clear that he intends to turn our justice system into a weapon for punishing and silencing his critics.”

The Comey indictment came less than a week after Mr Trump installed a former White House aide to the role of US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia.

The president had forced the removal of his previous hand-selected choice because he was not sufficiently responsive for calls to bring charges against his targets.

“This kind of interference is a dangerous abuse of power,” Mr Warner said.

“Our system depends on prosecutors making decisions based on evidence and the law, not on the personal grudges of a politician determined to settle scores.”

The first former president convicted of a felony – for falsifying business records to hide hush-money payments to conceal an alleged affair – Mr Trump regained the presidency despite a host of other legal troubles over his alleged retention of classified information after leaving the White House in 2021 and his role in stoking denials of his 2020 electoral defeat that culminated in the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Thursday’s moves were just the latest effort by Mr Trump to wield the vast powers of his office in unparalleled ways to punish his enemies since returning to the Oval Office in January. During his campaign, Mr Trump made clear that this was his intention if he returned to office.

“In 2016, I declared: I am your voice,” he said in 2023. “Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

Earlier this week, he signed an order designating a decentralised movement known as antifa – short for “anti-fascists” – as a domestic terrorist organisation, a move testing broad First Amendment protections enjoyed by organisations operating within the United States.

The memo went further, targeting liberal-leaning groups and donors, and “represents a significant abuse of power where the government is either changing the law or bending definitions to try and investigative and punish their political opponents in a way that is really unprecedented”, said Caitlin Legacki of Americans Against Government Censorship, which was founded to fight the Trump administration’s weaponisation of the federal government against its political rivals.

As for Comey, she said: “It reeks of selective prospection, it reeks of vindictive targeting and calls into question the integrity of many of the charges being brought by the office.”

Beyond Comey, Mr Trump has also pressured prosecutors to bring mortgage fraud charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought a massive civil fraud case against the president.

Attorney general Pam Bondi last month named a special prosecutor to investigate mortgage fraud allegations against both James and Democratic US senator Adam Schiff of California, another top Trump target. Both have denied any wrongdoing.

The Justice Department has also begun examining mortgage fraud allegations against Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor who has won success in lower courts in challenging Mr Trump’s effort to remove her from her job in a move she says is designed to erode the central bank’s independence.

Mr Trump has appealed to the US supreme court to allow him to oust her.

He has also stripped Secret Service protection from some former senior officials, including his 2024 Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, members of former president Joe Biden’s family, and people who have fallen from favour, including his ex-national security adviser John Bolton and his former secretary of state Mike Pompeo.

Mr Trump has also targeted major institutions, revoking security clearances for attorneys at law firms he disfavours, pulling billions of dollars in federal research funds from elite universities, and securing multimillion-dollar settlements against media organisations in lawsuits that were widely regarded as weak cases.