A former FBI director, James Comey, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday morning as his attorneys say they will attack the indictment levied by President Trump’s hand-picked U.S. attorney, arguing that he is the victim of a malicious prosecution.

The president’s own comments about Mr. Comey’s guilt are sure to appear in the defense lawyers’ motions to dismiss the case. 

Mr. Comey was indicted by a grand jury in Virginia last month for allegedly 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. Coney “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.

Appearing at the Albert V. Bryan Courthouse at Alexandria, Virginia, on Tuesday morning Mr. Comey’s attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, proclaimed that Mr. Comey would be pleading not guilty. Judge Michael Machnamoff, a nominee of President Biden, is presiding over the case. 

Judge Machnamoff explained that, if convicted, Mr. Comey faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. When asked by the judge if he understood the charges, Mr. Comey said, “I do.”

The former FBI director was joined in court by his wife and other members of his family, including his daughter, Maureen Comey, who is now suing the Trump administration to keep her job as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. 

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 limitations 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 last month. He stated that Mr. Comey — along with Senator Adam Schiff and New York’s 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 say they are going to argue that he 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 the two prosecutions against him for an illegal gun possession and felony tax evasion, though two different judges rejected those claims. 

According to the New York Times, Mr. Fitzgerald told Judge Machnamoff that they would seek to dismiss the charges before the January trial on the grounds that this is a malicious prosecution being conducted at the behest of the president.