Despite filling the pages of his novels with murder, corruption and organised crime, it’s hard to escape the feeling that James Comey’s own life is becoming stranger and more gripping than his fiction. Alongside a string of what he’s called politically motivated charges brought against him by the US Department of Justice under Donald Trump, the former FBI-director-turned-writer stands accused of threatening the life of the president of the United States.
Earlier this year, prosecutors charged him for allegedly threatening the president’s life on social media, charges which carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The reason? A picture he posted on Instagram in May 2025 of seashells arranged into the numbers “86 47” (86 is American slang for “get rid of”, while Trump is the 47th US President.) Comey denies any violent intent. “It has occurred to me that if you put aspects of my recent life in a manuscript, the editor might strike it and say ‘This is fiction but let’s not go crazy.’”
Comey believes Trump is using criminal investigations to pursue personal “retribution missions” against him and others, including New York attorney general Letitia James, former CIA chief John Brennan, US senators such as Adam Schiff, and E Jean Carroll, the writer who accused Trump of sexual assault. “When he took office, Trump said ‘I was the hunted—now I’m the hunter.’ He is plain about wanting to use the power of the Department of Justice to retaliate against people who’ve been critical of him.”
Comey served as the seventh director of the FBI from 2013, until he was fired by Trump on 9th May 2017. He is certain that the president’s ongoing grudge against him is partly because, under his leadership, the FBI investigated possible Russian interference in the 2016 election and links between Trump campaign figures and Russia (an investigation, he says, that “any competently led FBI would have to open.”)
“After I was fired, I refused to go away. I became a prominent public critic of Donald Trump. Whenever I would criticise him, he would respond by saying ‘He should be in jail’. I’ve also had lots of friends joke that the height differential was always a problem for him.”
Comey isn’t one to back down from a fight. Born in Yonkers, New York, in 1960, his early career saw him prosecuting organised crime figures as assistant US attorney in New York and working on terrorism cases in Virginia. “I’ve always hated bullies,” he explains.
There’s a little irony in Trump’s intense dislike, as some have accused Comey of gifting him the 2016 election. An FBI investigation into potential mishandling of classified information due to Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state was thought to have concluded in July 2016. Eleven days before the election, however, Comey informed Congress that the FBI had discovered additional emails during an unrelated investigation. Although he later confirmed that the FBI had completed the review without issuing charges against Clinton, the scandal led to a drop in her support in the polls. Clinton herself has said Comey “forever changed history”.
Comey describes his situation as having to choose between two doors that both “led to hell”. “I hope we had no impact on the election. But the other choice is, in my view, worse. I urge people to imagine an election where Hillary Clinton wins, and then it comes out that the FBI knew 11 days before the election [about the new emails] and said nothing. The door we chose, even in hindsight, was the least bad of those doors to hell.”
Being fired by Trump gave Comey time to write, starting with two non-fiction books before his editor suggested he try fiction. “I was a bit of a jerk about it,” Comey says, “It felt beneath me. Then I tried it and found it harder than non-fiction and, in a lot of ways, more rewarding because I could show people worlds I’d known in ways I hadn’t anticipated.”
His new thriller, Red Verdict, published by Head of Zeus, investigates a Novichok poisoning and a possible Russian espionage plot that threatens American national security. As well as a fifth novel to be published next year, he’s also signed a contract to write a non-fiction book about an FBI case from the 1930s. I half-jokingly wonder if he expects to write his next book from jail. “I hope not,” he laughs. Two previous charges have already been thrown out of court.
Comey doesn’t expect Trump to run for a third term, as he has threatened, and he’s “deeply optimistic” about post-Trump America, predicting “a U-turn that makes Hungary look like a pimple, and a recovery that’s very exciting.”
But he’s also cognisant that Trump is only a third of his way through his current term. He expects the Democrats to form a majority in Congress after the midterms, in which case the president’s “relevance will be fading. He’ll be a wounded, 80-year-old narcissist who increasingly sees himself losing what animates him, which is the attention and the spotlight. That’s a dangerous place for any country to be.”
“The American people made a serious mistake in electing him again. I hope we’ve seen the most severe consequences, [but] I fear we haven’t.”
‘Red Verdict’ is published by Head of Zeus in hardback, Ebook and audio on June 4th
