President Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday announced official charges against former FBI Director James Comey. Newly hired U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, got Comey indicted on two charges, alleging that he made false statements — during a congressional testimony — about authorizing a leak to The Wall Street Journal concerning the FBI’s 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email and connections between Trump’s campaign and Russia.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Thursday said either Comey or his Deputy Andrew McCabe gave false testimony to Congress and should be legally held accountable for their actions. Cruz wrote on X: “Comey and McCabe’s statements are irreconcilably contradictory.”
(According to the indictment, Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020 he had not “authorized someone else in the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports.” It was Cruz who had asked Comey the question. An Inspector General’s report form 2018 “found that in late October 2016, McCabe authorized Special Counsel and AD/OPA to discuss with [Wall Street Journal reporter Devlin] Barrett issues related to the FBI’s Clinton Foundation investigation.”)
National Review columnist Andy McCarthy, a former Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) for the Southern District of New York who worked with then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani, was asked for his opinion of Cruz’s assessment and the outlook for the DOJ’s indictment of Comey.
On Fox News, McCarthy said: “I love Ted but McCabe never said Comey authorized it. What McCabe said was that McCabe authorized it — this is a leak to the Wall Street Journal — and then he told Comey about it later.”
McCarthy: I love Ted but McCabe never said that Comey authorized it.
They’re not going to be able to prove he authorized the leak. By all accounts he didn’t. I don’t think this case even gets to trial. pic.twitter.com/mpLouSuZ19
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 26, 2025
McCarthy added: “The only way you could convict Comey beyond a reasonable doubt is Comey would have to truly believe that he personally had authorized the leak, he would have actually authorized the leak, and then he would have had to know that he was lying when he denied it to the Senate. They’re not even going to be able to prove that he authorized the leak because by all accounts he didn’t. So I don’t think this case even gets to trial.”
Note: An unwavering conservative who wrote a book calling for Barack Obama‘s impeachment, McCarthy also called for the impeachment of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 for actions performed during the Obama presidency. After the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol, McCarthy wrote of Trump: “I do think the president has committed an impeachable offense.”