On Thursday night, the Justice Department indicted former FBI Director James Comey — accusing him of having lied to Congress during sworn testimony.

For me, a journalist who covers declining democracies, this set off some pretty obvious alarm bells. President Donald Trump had already openly called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute Comey, one of his most prominent critics, but there she was hampered by what looked like a total lack of evidence. Just this morning, ABC News reported that attorneys in Virginia’s Eastern District had investigated Comey for two months but found insufficient cause to support an indictment. That such an indictment was filed anyway feels a lot like a vindictive effort by an authoritarian president to wield law against his enemies.

But hey, I thought — maybe I was being unfair to Lindsey Halligan, the federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia. Maybe ABC was wrong, and there really was damning evidence that Comey committed a crime.

So I read the indictment. And wow, is it worse than I thought.

The Comey indictment is an embarrassment to authoritarians

The indictment is very short — just two pages. I’ve uploaded it below, and I’d recommend you read it all before we proceed.