A former FBI director, James Comey, will be arraigned at a Virginia federal courthouse on Wednesday morning on charges related to an alleged lie he told Congress in 2020. President Trump had long demanded that the Department of Justice seek an indictment against him. 

That indictment was delivered by a grand jury in Virginia last month, accusing Mr. Comey of lying to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020 about his knowledge of leaks to the press during his tenure as FBI director. The indictment was sought by the acting U.S. attorney for the district of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, whom Mr. Trump installed in the post after the previous top prosecutor declined to pursue charges against Mr. Comey. 

The first charge claims that Mr. Comey “did willfully and knowingly make a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement in a matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch of the Government of the United States.” The second charge claims he obstructed a congressional proceeding.

He will appear at the Albert V. Bryan Courthouse at Alexandria, Virginia, at 10 a.m. Wednesday. Judge Michael Machnamoff, a nominee of President Biden, is presiding over the case. 

The indictment rests on Mr. Comey’s assertion before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020 that he did not authorize leaks to the press, even though his former deputy director, Andrew McCabe, has claimed that Mr. Comey was aware of disclosures being made to reporters. 

The then-FBI director told senators in 2017 that he authorized no leaks and, when asked by Senator Ted Cruz at the September 2020 hearing if he was standing by that testimony, Mr. Comey said he was. The statute of limitation for charges of lying to Congress is five years, meaning had Mr. Comey not been indicted last month, he would have been beyond the reach of the Department of Justice. 

Before the indictment was unsealed, Mr. Trump had demanded Mr. Comey’s arrest in a kind of open letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Truth Social. He stated that Mr. Comey — along with Senator Adam Schiff and the New York attorney general, Letitia James — ought to be indicted “now.”

On Monday, Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he has the power to direct prosecutions, though he claims he did not do so in this case. 

“I think he’s a crooked guy. He’s a dirty cop,” Mr. Trump said. “Look — he lied. This is a simple case. He totally lied.” 

Mr. Comey’s attorneys are expected to argue that their client is the victim of a political prosecution due to the president’s insistence that he be charged. The same argument was made by Hunter Biden in response to prosecutions for illegal gun possession and felony tax evasion, though two different judges rejected those claims.