James Comey

Biography

James Comey was born in Yonkers, New York, in 1960 and grew up in New Jersey. He graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1982 and from the University of Chicago Law School in 1985. After clerking for a federal judge and working at a law firm, he joined the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, where he helped prosecute members of the Gambino crime family. From 1996 to 2001 he ran the Richmond division of the federal prosecutor's office in eastern Virginia and led the prosecution over the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing.

Under President George W. Bush he was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2002, where he prosecuted Martha Stewart, and from late 2003 Deputy Attorney General. In March 2004, as acting attorney general, he refused to reauthorize parts of a warrantless surveillance program and went to John Ashcroft's hospital bedside to head off White House pressure. He then spent several years in the private sector as general counsel of Lockheed Martin and later of the investment firm Bridgewater Associates.

President Barack Obama appointed him Director of the FBI in 2013. Comey oversaw the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server; his public statement in July 2016 recommending no charges, and his letter to Congress shortly before the 2016 election announcing a review of new emails, drew heavy criticism, and a 2018 inspector general report faulted his conduct. He also led the bureau's inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

President Donald Trump fired Comey in May 2017. His memos of conversations with Trump and his testimony to Congress fed into the special counsel investigation that followed. He later became a critic of the Republican Party, which he left in 2016. In September 2025 he was indicted on charges of making false statements to Congress and obstruction; the case was dismissed that November, and he was indicted again in 2026.