Federal prosecutors have dropped a bombshell alleging that former FBI Director James Comey was knee-deep in shaping media narratives during the 2016 election, despite his sworn denials.
This explosive case, detailed in a filing on November 3, 2025, centers on evidence that Comey used personal emails to track and encourage efforts by a close associate to sway news coverage, contradicting his testimony before Congress, as Washington Examiner reports.
Let’s rewind to 2016, when the political stakes couldn’t have been higher with investigations into Hillary Clinton’s email server and alleged Trump-Russia ties swirling around the FBI.
Prosecutors say they’ve uncovered personal emails from late October 2016 showing Comey working closely with Daniel Richman, a Columbia Law professor and FBI special agent, to influence key journalists.
On October 30, 2016, just after notifying Congress about new Clinton emails, Comey emailed Richman, musing that a Clinton victory would validate his decisions—hardly the impartial stance you’d expect from the FBI’s top cop.
“Some day they will figure it out … my decision will be one a president elect Clinton will be very grateful for (although that wasn’t why I did it),” Comey wrote to Richman, as cited in the filing—a statement that raises eyebrows about his motives.
The very next day, October 31, 2016, Richman updated Comey on efforts to nudge New York Times reporters toward a favorable view of Comey’s earlier clearance of Clinton, with Comey replying from a personal account.
“Pretty good,” Comey emailed Richman about a Times article, adding that a reporter “showed some logic,” per government exhibits—hardly the detachment one might hope for from a public official steering sensitive probes.
Richman, acting as a go-between, admitted to investigators he contacted Times reporter Michael Schmidt to correct critical stories and shape future coverage, a cozy arrangement that smells of backdoor influence.
Fast forward to September 2020, when Comey testified before Congress, swearing he never authorized intermediaries to leak to the press about investigations into Clinton or Trump-Russia allegations.
Prosecutors now argue those personal emails and Richman’s role—extending to leaking Comey’s private Trump memos in 2017—paint a starkly different picture, leading to charges of false statements and obstructing Congress.
Comey has pleaded not guilty, with his legal team insisting he had every right as FBI director to push for accurate media portrayals, even claiming the prosecution reeks of political retaliation.
Adding fuel to the fire, prosecutors point to handwritten notes from September 2016, recently unearthed from secure FBI storage, showing Comey was briefed on intelligence about a Clinton campaign plan to link Trump to Russian hacking.
Despite this, Comey testified in 2020 that the intelligence didn’t “ring any bells,” a claim now challenged by the discovery of a CIA referral and his own notes marked “HRC plan to tie Trump.”
While Comey’s defenders argue this is all a witch hunt driven by personal grudges, the evidence suggests a troubling pattern of selective memory and media meddling that undermines trust in institutions already on shaky ground.
