All right, hey, everybody.

It's Sam Stein, managing out of Bullwork.

I am joined by Kyle Cheney of Politico.

We only bring Kyle in for five alarm fires, and this one, I think, counts. We have an indictment of James Comey tonight. It's long rumored, so I suppose we shouldn't be totally surprised. But there's something like that, I don't know, I don't know if it's for you. It feels different when it actually arrives, right? It's definitely, I mean, unquestionably.

I mean, it's always the buildup is so much of it. We spill so much ink on things that might happen and then don't. And it feels like a Rubicon crossing thing that, you know, we've thought was possible for a long time. And now it's here. and it really, there's really an impact. Why do you, why do you call it a Rubicon crossing moment?

Again, we've spilled a, possible for a long time and now it's here and it really there's really an impact why do you why do

you call it a rubicon crossing moment again we've spilled an enormous amount of ink on will this

president take you know act will act on his you know desire for vengeance against his political

enemies will he kept follow through on some of the threats he's made

over the years really to go after these people? And, you know, we saw in the first term, he talked a lot

about this person should go to jail, this person should be charged. And you know what, DOJ didn't do it.

Right. He had people there that, that resisted that or would, you know, sort of, you know, calm those instincts a bit

or tell him it couldn't be done. And this time around, he surrounded himself with people who

aren't going to give him that answer. And the question was when we would see the fruits of that.

And now we've seen it. And I guess the other question is why now, right? Like, so it's eight and a

half, nine months into the administration. People have been itching for this. He's been promising it. I know there's a statute of limitations around the Comey charges, but is that the compelling reason for doing it now? That is the, that I believe is the compelling reason for this particular case. I mean, Trump said a few days ago he wanted to see Comey charge and New York

Attorney General Letitia James and Adam Schiff. But the reason Comey, I think, went first was because

they only had until Tuesday to charge him or else they couldn't bring the case at all.

All right. Let's step back for a second because we jumped right into it. I got eager, I suppose. But let's explain what exactly the charges are, why they were delivered and how rare they are.

Sure. So Comey is faced with two charges. What's interesting is they actually tried to bring three charges, but the grand jury rejected one of them. But the two charges he faces, it's a false statements charge for a statement he made during congressional testimony in September 2020, COVID-era investigation of the Russia probe. You know, the Trump 2016 campaigns links to Russia. Komi investigated that, and that's what he was testifying

about. They think he lied about not just that probe broadly, but about whether he ever

authorized anyone to give an anonymous statement to the press related to that probe. So that's the

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