A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
The Justice Department is prosecuting former FBI Director James Comey again.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
A new indictment accuses Comey of threatening President Trump. His alleged crime is posting a photo on Instagram. It is the administration's second try at indicting Comey, who is a longtime Trump critic. In a moment, we'll speak with a longtime friend of Comey who is also a legal analyst. We begin with the latest information.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Carrie Johnson is with us. Carrie, what's the basis for this new indictment?
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Well, last May, Jim Comey posted a photo of the numbers 86-47 arranged in shells on the beach, 86 being a slang term for get rid of and 47 being the 47th American president, Donald Trump. Comey deleted the photo. He said he thought it was a political message, not a threat, but now a grand jury in North Carolina has made a federal case out of this. It's charged Comey with two felonies, including allegedly threatening the life of the president. Here's the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, at a news conference yesterday.
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TODD BLANCHE: While this case is unique and this indictment stands out because of the name of the defendant, his alleged conduct is the same kind of conduct that we will never tolerate and that we will always investigate and regularly prosecute.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So it sounds like the Justice Department is saying that Comey is getting treated just like everybody else. Is that so?
JOHNSON: We have evidence to suggest otherwise, including posts from President Trump himself. He's been demanding that Jim Comey and other people who investigated Trump be prosecuted. DOJ, of course, charged Comey with different alleged crimes last year in Virginia over some testimony he gave to Congress. But a judge threw out that case because the prosecutor, who was a former personal lawyer for Trump, was not legally appointed. Authorities are appealing that decision. They said from the stage yesterday the Comey investigation will continue.
And Jim Comey is not the only member of his own family to be the target of an alleged retribution campaign. Last year, for no clear reason, the Justice Department fired Comey's daughter Maurene from her job as a federal prosecutor in New York. A judge just allowed her wrongful termination case to move ahead in federal court.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So what happens now for James Comey? And what about the legal process next?
JOHNSON: Comey's going to get his day in court. And just like last year, he'll have to appear as a defendant, where he can enter a plea on these new charges. DOJ officials said he's going to get a trial by jury of his peers, and Comey says he's prepared to defend himself.
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JAMES COMEY: I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid. And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary, so let's go.
JOHNSON: Yeah. Some lawyers I spoke with wonder if this case will ever get to a trial. That's because prosecutors would need to prove Comey had some understanding of the threatening nature of this post under Supreme Court precedent. And so far, the evidence is he thought this was political speech protected by the First Amendment.
MARTÍNEZ: Is this action against James Comey part of a broader pattern that maybe we're seeing at the Justice Department?
JOHNSON: It is. The Justice Department under the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, really seems to be intensifying its effort to go after Trump's perceived enemies. Last week, it charged the Southern Poverty Law Center with misleading donors for paying informants to infiltrate hate groups. Yesterday, it indicted a former aide to Dr. Anthony Fauci for allegedly trying to conceal documents about the COVID pandemic. People who spent decades at DOJ worry juries and judges are losing confidence in its work. And one of those former lawyers wrote a new report about how DOJ is being used for political payback. Jonathan Wroblewski called it vengeance masquerading as justice.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Carrie Johnson. Carrie, thanks.
JOHNSON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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