Former FBI Director James Comey was charged Thursday with crimes connected to his Senate testimony in 2020 about an investigation, a major strike against a high-profile figure who has long been the target of President Donald Trump’s anger.

“No one is above the law,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said.

The indictment accuses Comey of making a false statement to Congress and obstruction of a criminal proceeding. He declared his innocence Thursday night and said, “Let’s have a trial.”

“My family and I have known for years that there are costs to standing up to Donald Trump,” Comey said in a video posted to Substack.

Comey, who was FBI director from 2013 to 2017, was fired by Trump during the president’s first term amid the government’s probe into allegations of ties between Russian officials and Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Trump mentioned Comey last weekend in a social media post in which he complained that no charges had been filed against him yet.

Prosecutors led by special counsel Robert Mueller did not establish that Trump or his associates criminally colluded with Russia in 2016, but they found that Trump’s campaign had welcomed Moscow’s assistance.

Trump and his supporters have called the investigation a “hoax” despite multiple government reviews showing Moscow interfered on behalf of the campaign.

The indictment against Comey accuses him of having lied to a Senate committee when he said he never authorized anyone to serve as an anonymous source to a reporter about an investigation.

Before the charges emerged Thursday, Trump told reporters that Comey was a “bad person.” He later reveled in news of the indictment.

“He has been so bad for our Country, for so long, and is now at the beginning of being held responsible for his crimes against our Nation,” Trump said on his social media platform.

Comey’s disgust for Trump was laid out in his 2018 memoir, “A Higher Loyalty.”

“This president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values,” Comey wrote. “His leadership is transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty.”

He recalled a private meeting with Trump early in his first presidency in which Trump demanded allegiance. Comey likened it to a Mafia induction.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration said it was investigating a social media post by Comey that Trump and his allies interpreted as a call for violence against the president.

In an Instagram post, Comey wrote “cool shell formation on my beach walk” under a picture of seashells that appeared to form the shapes for “86 47.” The Merriam-Webster dictionary says 86 is slang meaning “to throw out,” “get rid of” or “refuse service to.”

Comey deleted the post and said he didn’t know “some folks associate those numbers with violence.”

Comey’s daughter was a federal prosecutor for 10 years until she was fired in July by the Justice Department. Maurene Comey is suing to get her job back, saying her dismissal was unconstitutional and connected to Trump’s hostility toward her father.

“If a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain,” Maurene Comey said in a note to her colleagues. “Do not let that happen. Fear is the tool of a tyrant, wielded to suppress independent thought.”

The White House said the decision came from Justice Department officials.

Separately, James Comey’s son-in-law, Troy Edwards, resigned Thursday as a federal prosecutor, minutes after the former FBI director was indicted.

A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers pushed for more military-to-military dialogue in a meeting Sunday with China’s Premier Li Qiang, a rare congressional visit since the U.S.-China relations soured.

The last trip by a group of senators was in 2023, and Sunday’s delegation was the first from the House of Representatives to visit Beijing since 2019.

Li welcomed the delegates led by Rep. Adam Smith and called it an “icebreaking trip that will further the ties between the two countries.”

“It is important for our two countries to have more exchanges and cooperation, this is not only good for our two countries but also of great significance to the world,” Li said.

Smith, a Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said both sides were in agreement on the overarching aim of the visit.

“Certainly, trade and economy is on the top of the list ... (but also) we’re very focused on our military-to-military conversations,” he said in opening remarks. “As a member of the Armed Services Committee, I’m deeply concerned that our two militaries don’t communicate more.”

The delegation also included Michael Baumgartner, a Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as well as Ro Khanna and Chrissy Houlahan, both Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee. The lawmakers are in China until Thursday.

U.S.-China relations have taken a downturn since President Donald Trump’s first term and have been hobbled by trade tensions, the status of the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, Beijing’s support for Russia and China’s vast claims in the disputed South China Sea.

“China and the U.S. are the two most powerful and influential countries in the world, it’s really important that we get along, and we find a way to peacefully coexist in the world,” Smith said. “I really welcome your remarks about wanting to build and strengthen that relationship.”

Trump said he would meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a regional summit taking place at the end of October in South Korea and will visit China in the “early part of next year,” following a lengthy phone call between the two on Friday.

A lawyer for the maker of the video game Call of Duty argued Friday that a judge should dismiss a lawsuit brought by families of the victims of the Robb Elementary School attack in Uvalde, Texas, saying the contents of the war game are protected by the First Amendment.

The families sued Call of Duty maker Activision and Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram, saying that the companies bear responsibility for promoting products used by the teen gunman.

Three sets of parents who lost children in the shooting were in the audience at the Los Angeles hearing.

Activision lawyer Bethany Kristovich told Superior Court Judge William Highberger that the “First Amendment bars their claims, period full stop.”

“The issues of gun violence are incredibly difficult,” Kristovich said. “The evidence in this case is not.”

She argued that the case has little chance of prevailing if it continues, because courts have repeatedly held that “creators of artistic works, whether they be books, music, movies, TV or video games, cannot be held legally liable for the acts of their audience.”

The lawsuit, one of many involving Uvalde families, was filed last year on the second anniversary of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. The gunman killed 19 students and two teachers. Officers finally confronted and shot him after waiting more than an hour to enter the fourth-grade classroom.

Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was killed in the shooting, was among the parents who came from Texas to Southern California, where Activision is based, for the hearing.

“We traveled all this way, so we need answers,” Rubio said outside the courthouse. “It’s our hope that the case will move forward so we can get those answers.”

An attorney for the families argued during the hearing that Call of Duty exceeds its First Amendment protections by moving into marketing.

“The basis of our complaint is not the existence of Call of Duty,” Katie Mesner-Hage told the judge. “It is using Call of Duty as a platform to market weapons to minors.”

The plaintiffs’ lawyers showed contracts and correspondence between executives at Activison and gunmakers whose products, they said, are clearly and exactly depicted in the game despite brand names not appearing.

Mesner-Hage said the documents show that they actually prefer being unlabeled because “it helps shield them from the implication that they are marketing guns to minors,” while knowing that players will still identify and seek out the weapons.

Kristovich said there is no evidence that the kind of product placement and marketing the plaintiffs are talking about happened in any of the editions of the game the shooter played.

The families have also filed a lawsuit against Daniel Defense, which manufactured the AR-style rifle used in the May 24, 2022, shooting. Koskoff argued that a replica of the rifle clearly appears on a splash page for Call of Duty.

Josh Koskoff, the families’ Connecticut-based lead attorney, also represented families of nine Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims in a lawsuit against gunmaker Remington and got a $73 million lawsuit settlement.

He invoked Sandy Hook several times in his arguments, saying the shooters there and in Uvalde shared the same gaming obsession.

Koskoff said the Uvalde shooter experienced “the absorption and the loss of self in Call of Duty.”

He said that immersion was so deep that the shooter searched online for how to obtain an armored suit that he didn’t know only exists in the game.

Koskoff played a clip from Call of Duty Modern Warfare, the game the shooter played, with a first-person shooter gunning down opponents.

The shots echoed loudly in the courtroom, and several people in the audience slowly shook their heads.

“Call of Duty is in a class of its own,” Koskoff said.

Kristovich argued for Activision that the game, despite its vast numbers of players, can be tied to only a few of the many U.S. mass shootings.

“The game is incredibly common. It appears in a scene on ‘The Office,’” she said. She added that it is ridiculous to assert that “this is such a horrible scourge that your honor has to essentially ban it through this lawsuit.”

Highberger told the lawyers he was not leaning in either direction before the hearing. He gave no time frame for when he will rule, but a quick decision is not expected.

The judge did tell the plaintiffs’ lawyers that their description of Activision’s actions seemed like deliberate malfeasance, where their lawsuit alleges negligence. He said that was the biggest hurdle they needed to clear.

“Their conduct created a risk of exactly what happened,” Mesner-Hage told him. “And we represent the people who are exactly the foreseeable victims of that conduct.”

Meta’s attorneys will make arguments on a similar motion next month.