Comey seeks to have indictment tossed, arguing senator's questions were "confusing," "ambiguous"
Source: CBS News
Updated on: October 30, 2025 / 4:50 PM EDT
Washington — Former FBI Director James Comey is urging a federal court to dismiss the two federal charges brought against him over allegedly false testimony he gave to Congress in September 2020. He's arguing that the questions he answered, which were asked by GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, were "confusing" and "fundamentally ambiguous."
In a new filing with the court in Alexandria, Virginia, Comey's lawyers argued that his testimony in response to Cruz's questions was "literally true" and cannot support a conviction. The former FBI director's legal team suggested that the government is attempting to try Comey on "cherry-picked statements" given during a four-hour long Senate hearing without specifying which parts of his testimony it believes were false or misleading.
They argued that while the government has the authority to prosecute witnesses who mislead federal investigators by giving false answers to clear questions, "it does not authorize the government to create confusion by posing an imprecise question and then seek to exploit that confusion by placing an after-the-fact nefarious interpretation on the ensuing benign answer."
Comey's lawyers also asserted that "basic due process principles in criminal law require that the questioner frame his questions with clarity so that a witness does not have to guess."
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/comey-seeks-dismiss-indictment-ted-cruz-questions-confusing/