Former FBI Director James Comey said he will fight the federal charges brought against him by a federal grand jury in Virginia on Thursday evening.
“My family and I have known for years that there are costs for standing up to Donald Trump but we couldn’t imagine ourselves living any other way,” Comey said in a defiant video posted Thursday night to Instagram. In the close-up clip, Comey speaks directly to the camera while wearing a black suit and maroon tie.
“We will not live on our knees, and you shouldn’t either,” he added.
Comey was charged with making a false statement and obstruction of proceedings. The charges are the culmination of a years-long retribution campaign by President Donald Trump, who fired Comey during his first term and has publicly blamed the former FBI director for the bureau’s investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia.
The indictment represents the most significant step yet in the Trump administration’s efforts to punish the president’s perceived political enemies, particularly those that sought to investigate and prosecute him in the years since he assumed the office.
Trump posted to Truth Social, “JUSTICE IN AMERICA!” after the ruling was announced on Thursday, and called Comey “one of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to.”
“Let’s have a trial.”
— Kaivan Shroff (@KaivanShroff) September 26, 2025
A defiant Comey says he is heartbroken for the (corrupted) DOJ, but is innocent and has faith in the federal judicial system. pic.twitter.com/DVXbO7ZMEp
The investigation has been widely condemned by legal scholars and former Justice Department officials, who decried it as a new front in the Trump White House’s weaponization of law-enforcement powers.
“Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant,” Comey said in the video, an apparent reference to a letter penned by his daughter, Maurene, who earlier this year was fired from her post as a federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. “She’s right, but I’m not afraid, and I hope you’re not either.”
Minutes after the indictment came down, Comey’s son-in-law Troy Edwards quit his job as a federal prosecutor, The Associated Press reported. In a one-sentence resignation letter, he cited his “oath to uphold the Constitution and the country.”
Comey also pledged to fight the charges against him, and expressed his own belief in the justice system, saying, “My heart is broken for the Department of Justice.”
“I’m innocent. Let’s have a trial and keep the faith,” he added.