James Comey subpoenaed in alleged "grand conspiracy" against Trump
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Former FBI Director James Comey has been subpoenaed in the wide-ranging "grand conspiracy" case against the ex-officials who investigated and prosecuted President Trump, two sources with knowledge of the situation tell Axios.
Why it matters: The investigation has produced more than 130 subpoenas since cranking up last year, the sources say, and targets top officials who worked under former presidents Obama and Biden.
- The officials, including Comey, have all decried the investigation as political persecution and lawfare.
Zoom in: The Trump administration's grand conspiracy theory posits that Democratic officials bent the rules, broke the law and lied under oath to investigate, prosecute and otherwise undermine Trump from his election in 2016 through his federal indictments in 2023.
- The Comey subpoena, issued last week, relates to his alleged role in the drafting of a January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) concerning Russia's election interference that favored Trump.
- The assessment referenced the now-widely discredited Steele Dossier, whose inclusion "ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment," according to a "Tradecraft Review" completed in June under Trump's current CIA director, John Ratcliffe.
- Ratcliffe then referred Comey and former CIA director John Brennan for prosecution.
Zoom out: While popular with the online right, the idea of a criminal grand conspiracy has so far failed in the courts, which critics say is proof that no real crime against Trump took place.
The intrigue: U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee who threw out the federal prosecution against him in his classified documents case in 2024, is overseeing the grand jury based out of Fort Pierce in the Southern District of Florida.
- Florida's Southern District also has a more pro-Trump jury pool than the other federal districts that previously handled the cases involving Comey and Brennan.
- An attempted prosecution of Comey failed in the Eastern District of Virginia.
- The investigation of Brennan stalled in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Between the lines: Brennan is central to the case because he's accused of lying in a congressional deposition concerning the Steele Dossier in 2023. That makes a prosecution still permissible under the five-year statute of limitations.
- The statute of limitations to prosecute Comey for his alleged false statements in 2020 has since passed.
- But U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones hopes to tie Comey, Brennan and others — including former special prosecutor Jack Smith — together in a prosecutable conspiracy case.
What they're saying: Comey's attorneys could not be immediately reached Thursday. Neither could Brennan's, who protested Quiñones' investigation last year in a letter to the chief judge of the Florida district.
- "This unrelenting presidential pressure to pursue political targets without regard to the law or facts has resulted in an unprecedented spike in the incidence of irregular prosecutorial conduct, especially in relation to grand jury investigations and charging decisions relating to matters of political interest to the president," Brennan's attorneys wrote.
