Former FBI Director James Comey was charged Thursday with crimes connected to his Senate testimony in 2020 about an investigation, a major strike against a high-profile figure who has long been the target of President Donald Trump’s anger.

“No one is above the law,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said.

The indictment accuses Comey of making a false statement to Congress and obstruction of a criminal proceeding. He declared his innocence Thursday night and said, “Let’s have a trial.”

“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump,” Comey said in a video posted to Substack.

Comey, who was FBI director from 2013 to 2017, was fired by Trump during the president’s first term amid the government’s probe into allegations of ties between Russian officials and Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Trump mentioned Comey last weekend in a social media post in which he complained that no charges had been filed against him yet.

Prosecutors led by special counsel Robert Mueller did not establish that Trump or his associates criminally colluded with Russia in 2016, but they found that Trump’s campaign had welcomed Moscow’s assistance.

Trump and his supporters have called the investigation a “hoax” despite multiple government reviews showing Moscow interfered on behalf of the campaign.

The indictment against Comey accuses him of having lied to a Senate committee when he said he never authorized anyone to serve as an anonymous source to a reporter about an investigation.

Before the charges emerged Thursday, Trump told reporters that Comey was a “bad person.” He later reveled in news of the indictment.

“He has been so bad for our Country, for so long, and is now at the beginning of being held responsible for his crimes against our Nation,” Trump said on his social media platform.

Comey’s disgust for Trump was laid out in his 2018 memoir, “A Higher Loyalty.”

“This president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values,” Comey wrote. “His leadership is transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty.”

He recalled a private meeting with Trump early in his first presidency in which Trump demanded allegiance. Comey likened it to a Mafia induction.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration said it was investigating a social media post by Comey that Trump and his allies interpreted as a call for violence against the president.

In an Instagram post, Comey wrote “cool shell formation on my beach walk” under a picture of seashells that appeared to form the shapes for “86 47.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “get rid of” or “refuse service to.”

Comey deleted the post and said he didn’t know “some folks associate those numbers with violence.”

Comey’s daughter was a federal prosecutor for 10 years until she was fired in July by the Justice Department. Maurene Comey is suing to get her job back, saying her dismissal was unconstitutional and connected to Trump’s hostility toward her father.

“If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain,” Maurene Comey said in a note to her colleagues. “Do not let that happen. Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought.”

The White House said the decision came from Justice Department officials.

Separately, James Comey’s son-in-law, Troy Edwards, resigned Thursday as a federal prosecutor, minutes after the former FBI director was indicted.

A lawyer for the maker of the video game Call of Duty argued Friday that a judge should dismiss a lawsuit brought by families of the victims of the Robb Elementary School attack in Uvalde, Texas, saying the contents of the war game are protected by the First Amendment.

The families sued Call of Duty maker Activision and Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram, saying that the companies bear responsibility for promoting products used by the teen gunman.

Three sets of parents who lost children in the shooting were in the audience at the Los Angeles hearing.

Activision lawyer Bethany Kristovich told Superior Court Judge William Highberger that the “First Amendment bars their claims, period full stop.”

“The issues of gun violence are incredibly difficult,” Kristovich said. “The evidence in this case is not.”

She argued that the case has little chance of prevailing if it continues, because courts have repeatedly held that “creators of artistic works, whether they be books, music, movies, TV or video games, cannot be held legally liable for the acts of their audience.”

The lawsuit, one of many involving Uvalde families, was filed last year on the second anniversary of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. The gunman killed 19 students and two teachers. Officers finally confronted and shot him after waiting more than an hour to enter the fourth-grade classroom.

Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was killed in the shooting, was among the parents who came from Texas to Southern California, where Activision is based, for the hearing.

“We traveled all this way, so we need answers,” Rubio said outside the courthouse. “It’s our hope that the case will move forward so we can get those answers.”

An attorney for the families argued during the hearing that Call of Duty exceeds its First Amendment protections by moving into marketing.

“The basis of our complaint is not the existence of Call of Duty,” Katie Mesner-Hage told the judge. “It is using Call of Duty as a platform to market weapons to minors.”

The plaintiffs’ lawyers showed contracts and correspondence between executives at Activison and gunmakers whose products, they said, are clearly and exactly depicted in the game despite brand names not appearing.

Mesner-Hage said the documents show that they actually prefer being unlabeled because “it helps shield them from the implication that they are marketing guns to minors,” while knowing that players will still identify and seek out the weapons.

Kristovich said there is no evidence that the kind of product placement and marketing the plaintiffs are talking about happened in any of the editions of the game the shooter played.

The families have also filed a lawsuit against Daniel Defense, which manufactured the AR-style rifle used in the May 24, 2022, shooting. Koskoff argued that a replica of the rifle clearly appears on a splash page for Call of Duty.

Josh Koskoff, the families’ Connecticut-based lead attorney, also represented families of nine Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims in a lawsuit against gunmaker Remington and got a $73 million lawsuit settlement.

He invoked Sandy Hook several times in his arguments, saying the shooters there and in Uvalde shared the same gaming obsession.

Koskoff said the Uvalde shooter experienced “the absorption and the loss of self in Call of Duty.”

He said that immersion was so deep that the shooter searched online for how to obtain an armored suit that he didn’t know only exists in the game.

Koskoff played a clip from Call of Duty Modern Warfare, the game the shooter played, with a first-person shooter gunning down opponents.

The shots echoed loudly in the courtroom, and several people in the audience slowly shook their heads.

“Call of Duty is in a class of its own,” Koskoff said.

Kristovich argued for Activision that the game, despite its vast numbers of players, can be tied to only a few of the many U.S. mass shootings.

“The game is incredibly common. It appears in a scene on ‘The Office,’” she said. She added that it is ridiculous to assert that “this is such a horrible scourge that your honor has to essentially ban it through this lawsuit.”

Highberger told the lawyers he was not leaning in either direction before the hearing. He gave no time frame for when he will rule, but a quick decision is not expected.

The judge did tell the plaintiffs’ lawyers that their description of Activision’s actions seemed like deliberate malfeasance, where their lawsuit alleges negligence. He said that was the biggest hurdle they needed to clear.

“Their conduct created a risk of exactly what happened,” Mesner-Hage told him. “And we represent the people who are exactly the foreseeable victims of that conduct.”

Meta’s attorneys will make arguments on a similar motion next month.

Pricey prescriptions and nagging medical costs are swamping some insurers and employers now. Patients may start paying for it next year.

Health insurance will grow more expensive in many corners of the market in 2026, and coverage may shrink. That could leave patients paying more for doctor visits and dealing with prescription coverage changes.

Price increases could be especially stark in individual coverage marketplaces, where insurers also are predicting the federal government will end some support that helps people buy coverage.

“We’re in a period of uncertainty in every health insurance market right now, which is something we haven’t seen in a very long time,” said Larry Levitt, an executive vice president at the nonprofit KFF, which studies health care.

What’s hitting insurers

In conference calls to discuss recent earnings reports, insurers ticked off a list of rising costs: More people are receiving care. Visits to expensive emergency rooms are rising, as are claims for mental health treatments.

Insurers also say more healthy customers are dropping coverage in the individual market. That leaves a higher concentration of sicker patients who generate claims.

Enrollment in the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces swelled the past few years. But a crackdown on fraud and a tightening of eligibility verifications that were loosened during the COVID-19 pandemic makes it harder for some to stay covered, Jefferies analyst David Windley noted.

People who use little care “are disappearing,” he said.

Prescription drugs pose another challenge, especially popular and expensive diabetes and obesity treatments sometimes called GLP-1 drugs. Those include Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy and Zepbound.

“Pharmacy just gives me a headache, no pun intended,” said Vinnie Daboul, Boston-based managing director of the employee benefits consultant RT Consulting.

There are more super expensive drugs

New gene therapies that can come with a one-time cost of more than $2 million also are having an impact, insurance brokers say. Those drugs, which target rare diseases, and some newer cancer treatments are part of the reason Sun Life Financial covered 47 claims last year that cost over $3 million.

The financial services company covers high-cost claims for employers that pay their own medical bills. Sun Life probably had no claims that expensive a decade ago and maybe “a handful at best” five years ago, said Jen Collier, president of health and risk solutions.

Some of these drugs are rarely used, but they cause overall costs to rise. That raises insurance premiums.

“It’s adding to medical (cost growth) in a way that we haven’t seen in the past,” Collier said.

Marketplace pain is in the forecast

Price hikes will be most apparent on the Affordable Care Act’s individual coverage marketplaces. Insurers there are raising premiums around 20% in 2026, according to KFF, which has been analyzing state regulatory filings.

But the actual hike consumers see may be much bigger. Enhanced tax credits that help people buy coverage could expire at the end of the year, unless Congress renews them.

If those go away, customer coverage costs could soar 75% or more, according to KFF.

Business owner Shirley Modlin worries about marketplace price hikes. She can’t afford to provide coverage for the roughly 20 employees at 3D Design and Manufacturing in Powhatan, Virginia, so she reimburses them $350 a month for coverage they buy.

Modlin knows her reimbursement only covers a slice of what her workers pay. She worries another price hike might push some to look for work at a bigger company that offers benefits.

“My employee may not want to go to work for a large corporation, but when they consider how they have to pay their bills, sometimes they have to make sacrifices,” she said.
Employers may shift costs

Costs also have been growing in the bigger market for employer-sponsored coverage, the benefits consultant Mercer says. Employees may not feel that as much because companies generally pay most of the premium.

But they may notice coverage changes.

About half the large employers Mercer surveyed earlier this year said they are likely or very likely to shift more costs to their employees. That may mean higher deductibles or that people have to pay more before they reach the out-of-pocket maximum on their coverage.

Drug coverage changes are possible

For prescriptions, patients may see caps on those expensive obesity treatments or limits on who can take them.

Some plans also may start using separate deductibles for their pharmaceutical and medical benefits or having patients pay more for their prescriptions, Daboul said.

Coverage changes could vary around the country, noted Emily Bremer, president of a St. Louis-based independent insurance agency, The Bremer Group.

Employers aren’t eager to cut benefits, she said, so people may not see dramatic prescription coverage changes next year. But that may not last.

“If something doesn’t give with pharmacy costs, it’s going to be coming sooner than we’d like to think,” Bremer said.

A Virginia man pleaded guilty Friday in a federal case that accused him of stockpiling the largest number of finished explosives in FBI history and of using then-President Joe Biden’s photo for target practice.

Brad Spafford pleaded guilty in federal court in Norfolk to possession of an unregistered short barrel rifle and possession of an unregistered destructive device, according to court documents. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for December.

Federal authorities said they seized about 150 pipe bombs and other homemade devices last fall at Spafford’s home in Isle of Wight County, which is northwest of Norfolk.

The investigation into Spafford began in 2023 when an informant told authorities that Spafford was stockpiling weapons and ammunition, according to court documents. The informant, a friend and member of law enforcement, told authorities that Spafford was using pictures of then-President Joe Biden for target practice and that “he believed political assassinations should be brought back,” prosecutors wrote.

Two weeks after the assassination attempt of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2024, Spafford told the informant, “bro I hope the shooter doesn’t miss Kamala,” according to court documents. Former Vice President Kamala Harris had recently announced she was running for president. On around the same day, Spafford told the informant that he was pursuing a sniper qualification at the local gun range, court records stated.

Spafford stored a highly unstable explosive material in a garage freezer next to “Hot Pockets and frozen corn on the cob,” according to court documents. Investigators also said they found explosive devices in an unsecured backpack labeled “#NoLivesMatter.”

Spafford has remained in jail since his arrest last December. U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen ruled against his release last January, writing that Spafford has “shown the capacity for extreme danger.” She also noted that Spafford lost three fingers in an accident involving homemade explosives in 2021.

Spafford had initially pleaded not guilty to the charges in January. Defense attorneys had argued at the time that Spafford, who is married and a father of two young daughters, works a steady job as a machinist and has no criminal record.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Swartz said at Spafford’s January detention hearing that investigators had gathered information on him since January 2023, during which Spafford never threatened anyone.

“And what has he done during those two years?” Swartz said. “He purchased a home. He’s raised his children. He’s in a great marriage. He has a fantastic job, and those things all still exist for him.”

Investigators, however, said they had limited knowledge of the homemade bombs until an informant visited Spafford’s home, federal prosecutors wrote in a filing.

“But once the defendant stated on a recorded wire that he had an unstable primary explosive in the freezer in October 2024, the government moved swiftly,” prosecutors wrote.

The legal battle over President Donald Trump’s move to end birthright citizenship is far from over despite the Republican administration’s major victory Friday limiting nationwide injunctions.

Immigrant advocates are vowing to fight to ensure birthright citizenship remains the law as the Republican president tries to do away with more than a century of precedent.

The high court’s ruling sends cases challenging the president’s birthright citizenship executive order back to the lower courts. But the ultimate fate of the president’s policy remains uncertain.

Here’s what to know about birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court’s ruling and what happens next.

What does birthright citizenship mean?

Birthright citizenship makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers in the country illegally.

The practice goes back to soon after the Civil War, when Congress ratified the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, in part to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship.

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States,” the amendment states.

Thirty years later, Wong Kim Ark, a man born in the U.S. to Chinese parents, was refused re-entry into the U.S. after traveling overseas. His suit led to the Supreme Court explicitly ruling that the amendment gives citizenship to anyone born in the U.S., no matter their parents’ legal status.

It has been seen since then as an intrinsic part of U.S. law, with only a handful of exceptions, such as for children born in the U.S. to foreign diplomats.

Trump has long said he wants to do away with birthright citizenship

Trump’s executive order, signed in January, seeks to deny citizenship to children who are born to people who are living in the U.S. illegally or temporarily. It’s part of the hardline immigration agenda of the president, who has called birthright citizenship a “magnet for illegal immigration.”

Trump and his supporters focus on one phrase in the amendment — “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” – saying it means the U.S. can deny citizenship to babies born to women in the country illegally.

A series of federal judges have said that’s not true, and issued nationwide injunctions stopping his order from taking effect.

“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said at a hearing earlier this year in his Seattle courtroom.

In Greenbelt, Maryland, a Washington suburb, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman wrote that “the Supreme Court has resoundingly rejected and no court in the country has ever endorsed” Trump’s interpretation of birthright citizenship.

Is Trump’s order constitutional? The justices didn’t say

The high court’s ruling was a major victory for the Trump administration in that it limited an individual judge’s authority in granting nationwide injunctions. The administration hailed the ruling as a monumental check on the powers of individual district court judges, whom Trump supporters have argued want to usurp the president’s authority with rulings blocking his priorities around immigration and other matters.

But the Supreme Court did not address the merits of Trump’s bid to enforce his birthright citizenship executive order.

“The Trump administration made a strategic decision, which I think quite clearly paid off, that they were going to challenge not the judges’ decisions on the merits, but on the scope of relief,” said Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor.

Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters at the White House that the administration is “very confident” that the high court will ultimately side with the administration on the merits of the case.

Questions and uncertainty swirl around next steps

The justices kicked the cases challenging the birthright citizenship policy back down to the lower courts, where judges will have to decide how to tailor their orders to comply with the new ruling. The executive order remains blocked for at least 30 days, giving lower courts and the parties time to sort out the next steps.

The Supreme Court’s ruling leaves open the possibility that groups challenging the policy could still get nationwide relief through class-action lawsuits and seek certification as a nationwide class. Within hours after the ruling, two class-action suits had been filed in Maryland and New Hampshire seeking to block Trump’s order.

But obtaining nationwide relief through a class action is difficult as courts have put up hurdles to doing so over the years, said Suzette Malveaux, a Washington and Lee University law school professor.

“It’s not the case that a class action is a sort of easy, breezy way of getting around this problem of not having nationwide relief,” said Malveaux, who had urged the high court not to eliminate the nationwide injunctions.