President Donald Trump faced an unusually blunt question from Fox News on Friday, when Senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked if the bombshell indictment of former FBI Director James Comey was “revenge” for Trump’s own mugshot moment. “Is this more about justice, or is it about revenge,” Doocy pressed as Trump departed the White House for the Ryder Cup. “It’s about justice really, it’s not revenge, it is about justice,” Trump responded.
Before Comey’s indictment, Trump publicly demanded that Attorney General Pam Bondi charge his political enemies, naming Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. He made his demands in a now-deleted social media post. The controversial move by the President could hand Comey ammunition for a defense. Within a day, a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted Comey for allegedly making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding, charges tied to testimony from 2020, not to the Russia probe directly. Trump celebrated moments later, writing that “justice” had finally been served.
Even some voices on Fox expressed concern at how the case came together. As previously reported, Fox Host Howard Kurtz said on air that the prosecution was “completely and totally orchestrated” by Trump, noting the president had pushed out a U.S. attorney who would not bring the case and installed an ally who would. That ally is interim U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan, a former Trump legal adviser with very little prosecutorial experience, whose rapid move to indict drew instant scrutiny in Washington.
Civil liberties groups and several lawmakers called Comey’s indictment a dangerous abuse of power, arguing that presidents are not supposed to steer individual prosecutions, and certainly not against personal enemies. The Justice Department under Bondi insists the case is about accountability, yet the optics are hard to ignore: a replaced prosecutor, a rushed decision, a victory lap by Trump, and now questions about whether this is payback for a mugshot.
Reporters hitTrump with follow-ups as he headed to the helicopter, asking if more indictments are coming. He hinted that others could face charges, which only fed the perception of a retribution drive targeting officials tied to the original Trump investigations. Democrats, for their part, are already moving to investigate the circumstances of the case, and Senate critics are signaling that Halligan’s expected nomination for a permanent post will face a rough road.
Comey, who was fired by Trump in 2017 after refusing to shut down parts of the Russia investigation, says he will fight the charges and welcomes a courtroom showdown. Legal analysts note that the underlying discrepancy was examined by the Justice Department’s inspector general years ago, and that proving an intentional lie to Congress is often harder than it sounds. If defense lawyers can show political pressure tainted the decision to prosecute, they say, a judge could toss it.
For now, the moment belongs to a Fox News correspondent who asked what many critics are thinking out loud. Doocy tied the spectacle back to Trump’s own booking photo, asked if this indictment is really about evening the score, and got a denial on camera.
