Question

Trump said he used presidential power to have James Comey arrested and warned critics and Iran.

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Exhibit 1 for his trial for violations of our First Amendment rights.

Answer 1

The claim that Trump said he used presidential power to have James Comey arrested, and also warned critics and Iran. After I looked for further evidence on the matter, I found that this is likely misleading. Trump publicly criticized James Comey and supported the Justice Department's actions against him after Comey was investigated over a social media post. However, I could not find any factual evidence that Trump literally stated he personally used presidential power to have Comey arrested. Most reports describe the arrest and indictment as actions that were carried out through the DOJ, not Trump directly. To investigate the claim further, I looked at reports from The Washington Post, which is generally considered a reliable source of media. Discussing Trump’s comments towards Iran and political opponents. But no direct claim that he was the one responsible for the actions against James Comey. I also went to check the Office of Public Affairs (DOJ), which reported on the incident, and there was no mention of Trump calling for the arrest, simply about how the grand jury returned with an indictment, etc. Tracing the claim back to the original report showing that Trump did make aggressive public statements towards Iran and celebrated when Comey was indicted, but the wording of this post is misleading and not at all what really happened, the average reader seeing this and taking it for truth would be misinformed.

 

​​https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/05/09/doj-sees-fallout-after-push-prosecute-former-fbi-director-james-comey/

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-grand-jury-indicts-former-fbi-director-james-comey-threats-harm-president-trump

Answer 2

The claim that Donald Trump said he used presidential power to have James Comey arrested and warned critics and iran is not supported by any credible evidence. After looking at primary sources including Trumps public speeches, interviews, social media posts, and official statements there is no record of Trump stating this. James Comey has not been arrested and no major credible news organization has reported on this. The claim is misleading.

My primary source that I used to research this claim is Trumps truth social and public statements: https://truthsocial.com/. I looked at this and could not find any verified statements that claimes to have ordered James Comey to be arrested. Trump has publicly criticized Comey multiple times, but critisism is much different than claiming to arrest someone through presidential power. A second primary source that I used is the FBI/DOJ information records: https://www.fbi.gov/. There are no official DOJ or FBI records that show James Comey was arrested. If this was true, there would be record of that on this website and these are credible government sources that can be trusted to have this information if true.
In conclusion, there is no plausable evidence that can confrim this statement, and this original claim was through social media which can spread edited or misleading information quickly.