Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, told Newsmax on Wednesday that former FBI Director James Comey was treated properly at his arraignment — calling it a sharp contrast to what she described as the “shock-and-awe” arrests of several Trump-era officials and supporters under the Biden administration.
“It definitely was a violation of protocols to have these sort of shock-and-awe armed guards and CNN watching,” Dhillon said on “The Chris Salcedo Show.”
“When Roger Stone was arrested, having people like Jeffrey Clark out in the street and his little children terrorized while the media is watching — that’s an outrageous abuse of power and it’s overreach.”
Dhillon said Comey’s calm surrender and court appearance Wednesday on federal charges of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding was “the appropriate way law enforcement should behave.”
“I know people want vengeance,” she said. “They want to see him shackled and punished and humiliated. That isn’t really the American way. Hopefully we can all dial it back and behave appropriately in these types of circumstances.”
Comey, who was FBI director from 2013 to 2017, pleaded not guilty in federal court in Washington to the two-count indictment.
Prosecutors allege he lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020 about his handling of the bureau’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation of President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. He was released without bail pending a hearing later this month.
Dhillon compared Comey’s handling to the arrests of other Trump allies such as Peter Navarro, who was detained in a highly publicized FBI raid, as well as former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, whose suburban Virginia home was searched by armed agents in 2022.
Host Chris Salcedo also cited Mark Houck, a Pennsylvania anti-abortion activist arrested at gunpoint in 2022 on charges of which he was found not guilty by a jury.
“I don’t know how the government can apologize to Roger Stone and others for the unnecessary humiliation they were put through,” Dhillon said. “It was completely wrong and un-American.”
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