Vice President JD Vance made numerous stops at Sunday political TV shows this week. During his one-on-one interview with Kristen Welker on Meet The Press, Vance was asked about President Trump calling for the prosecution of his political enemies.
[Welker noted the revelation that Trump’s public exhortation to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to go after former FBI Director James Comey, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), and New York Attorney General Letitia James — two of whom have been subsequently indicted — was intended as a private communication. Trump’s Bondi message had said the DOJ’s lack of action threatened the administration’s “credibility.”]
Vance purported that retribution wasn’t the reason for the DOJ action against Comey and James, but that the administration is “driven by the law and the facts of the case.”
Welker: Is DOJ acting on orders from the president to prosecute his political opponents?
Vance: No, we’re driven by the law and the facts of the case— if you look at the fact that James Comey obviously lied under oath, Letitia James obviously committed mortgage fraud….
You… pic.twitter.com/hQ8p6hDnsE
— Acyn (@Acyn) October 12, 2025
The Vice President then followed up with language that no media outlet could use, pronouncing the guilt of the defendants without the obligatory “alleged” — which journalists customarily use to describe crimes and charges for which an alleged criminal has not been convicted. (Comey has pleaded not guilty.)
Instead, Vance spoke as if the cases of Comey and James had been litigated already and that a verdict had rendered the two guilty, which has not happened.
Vance described accusations presented in the indictment not as charges but as facts, saying unequivocally “if you look at the fact that James Comey obviously lied under oath, Letitia James obviously committed mortgage fraud.”
Then asked if Trump’s calling for these indictments publicly “blurs the line” about selective prosecutions, which are antithetical to functioning democracy, Vance said “no.”
As evidence, Vance presented the lack (so far) of prosecutions against former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asserting that no indictments against that trio of Democrats essentially proved the Trump administration was merely following the letter of the law, rather than seeking retribution in the cases of Comey and James. (Vance did not say what charges he believed Biden, Obama and Clinton might be indicted over.)
Numerous commenters expressed concern that Vance’s cavalier judgement of the guilt of both James and Comey — before a trial — would unduly influence any jury pool.
How can any defendant get a fair trial when the VP asserts – perhaps maliciously – that the defendant is guilty? How does that not taint the jury pool?
— Rosebud (@Rosie6500) October 12, 2025
Others suggested that in a court of law, rather than the court of public opinion where Vance is arguing his case, such statements could help rather than damage the defendants.
As one commenter wrote: “Sounds like more extrajudicial statements that will assist the defendants/victims of political persecution.”
Vance’s assertion that Comey “obviously lied” isn’t being disputed only by Democrats.
When U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said after Comey’s indictment that either the FBI Director or his Deputy Andrew McCabe gave false testimony to Congress — and that their statements were “irreconcilably contradictory” — conservative lawyer and commentator Andy McCarthy, a former Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) for the Southern District of New York, disagreed, replying:
“I love Ted but McCabe never said Comey authorized [the leak]…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.”
Doubters of McCarthy’s conservative credentials should know he’s a National Review columnist, worked under Rudy Giuliani as a AUSA, and wrote a book calling for Barack Obama‘s impeachment.