C (4:13)

President Trump pursued this indictment against Comey because he's long had Comey in his crosshairs.

B (4:21)

That's Journal White House reporter Annie Linsky.

C (4:24)

He believes that James Comey broke the law when Comey was investigating Trump for ties, alleged ties between Trump's first campaign and the Russian government. And this investigation that Comey led in Trump's first term was crippling. It dominated news stories. It was a constant narrative that Trump feels undercut his work in his first term.

B (4:50)

Last week, the president replaced the US Attorney he appointed in the Eastern District of Virginia, who had told colleagues he did not see a case to bring against Comey. Prosecutors then raced to obtain the indictment as the statute of limitations on such a case was due to run out next week. Annie says the success of that indictment shows Trump has a firm grip on government.

C (5:11)

This is always a political office. In post Watergate years, the Department of Justice has always tried to at least appear independent from the White House. This is a complete change from that. This is an instance where Trump was very clear that he wanted an indictment against a person who he perceives as a political enemy. Trump made it very clear he was disappointed and instead through the Justice Department, replaced a prosecutor with somebody who was willing to take this case to a grand jury and bringing it before the grand jury. They were successful.

B (5:48)

But Annie says the indictment is just the start of a lengthy legal process.

C (5:53)

The arraignment on this case is set for October 9, but Comey's lawyers are going to have the opportunity to mount the most robust possible defense. Comey is a very sophisticated Washington player. He has the best legal team available to him, but he is also facing the full force of the federal government, which also is going to have every resource available to them. So we are looking, staring at the beginning of a legal clash that is going to be occurring over the next months and quite frankly, probably years. Comey also responded out of social media posts online saying that he is innocent and that he plans to vigorously defend this case.

B (6:35)

Democrats have criticized the case as an abuse of power. Coming up, we unpack the challenge for NATO countries in responding to drones entering their airspace in what's being called a new age of hybrid warfare. That story after the break.

E (6:56)

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B (7:28)

NATO defense ministers are meeting today to address a growing issue how to stop drone incursions. Just yesterday, Denmark said a hybrid attack had shut its airspace for the second time in a week, while NATO fighter jets shot down several Russian drones that flew into Poland earlier this month. Meanwhile, Russian jets flew into Estonian airspace just last week. They're the biggest breaches of NATO airspace since the Ukrainian war began, with member states saying the bloc urgently needs to come up with better defenses. Foreign correspondent Suna Rasmussen has been covering the drone incursions for the journal suna. These seem to be an increasingly regular occurrence. Let's start with what we do know about these attacks.

F (8:10)

So over the past week, Danish authorities have spotted drones first in Copenhagen around Copenhagen Airport, which is the busiest airport in Scandinavia. They had to close down for air traffic for several hours on Monday evening. And then later in the week, drones were spotted at four different sites in the western part of the country, including around an air base that's home to most of Denmark's F16 and F35 fighter jets. So those two in particular, the Copenhagen airport and the air base are quite serious incursions.

B (8:42)

I want to dig in A little bit more to the issue of shooting down drones. Earlier this week we had President Trump saying that NATO allies should shoot down Russian aircraft in their airspace. But is that a feasible way to handle these incursions? I mean, Danish authorities said it was too dangerous because the airports are near heavily populated areas.

F (9:01)

I mean, it's feasible in the sense that Denmark could certainly do it. Denmark has adequate defenses against drones. What Denmark doesn't have is an adequate system to detect drones and also to neutralize drones if they come in too large a number. And that speaks to another dilemma in this. One thing that's holding Danish authorities back, as you say, is security on the ground. If you shoot down a drone, it will come down. And these are pretty big unmanned vehicles. So it could hit houses, it could hit people on the ground. But I think a bigger issue is also so whether it is strategically prudent for a country like Denmark to do so. You could quickly waste quite a large part of your missile arsenal if you shot down drones every time they were sent over Europe, if it continues to be a regular occurrence. Denmark and other European countries have called for a so called drone wall to defend Europe against these types of incursions. But that comes with a whole host of other challenges as well.

B (10:00)

Suna, you mentioned a drone wall. If detection is so difficult, what would that look like?

F (10:05)

One issue that's important to understand is that drone technology is developing much faster than counter drone technology. So at this point, Russia, or Ukraine for that matter, can send swarms of relatively cheap, affordable, quickly mass produced drones over an enemy country and basically overwhelm almost counter drone defense systems or the aerial defense systems of a particular country. And what many Western security officials are now calling for is investment into counter drone technology. Basically technology that can be produced at a faster clip and much cheaper than they're able to produce them. Now, that's one issue sort of hampering this idea of a drone wall. Another issue is that not all drones can be intercepted. I mean, some drones can't be jammed. Some drones are also launched from within the country that they're targeting. That seems to maybe have been the case in Denmark. For example, here, late on Wednesday night were launched in the vicinity of Denmark. They were not launched from far away, meaning they're not launched from Russia. So that also poses a problem with a drone wall. A drone wall would not necessarily be able to detect or neutralize drones from within the boundaries of the wall.

B (11:16)

So if this is just sort of the new frontier of modern warfare, how does this change the military apparatus of countries like Denmark in terms of how they think of defense.

F (11:27)

Yeah. This is interesting because Denmark, in particular, the way that Denmark has approached the war in Ukraine, has been to basically donate all its artillery to Ukraine and really focus on bolstering Ukraine's defenses. But if all of a sudden Denmark is in a situation where it has to use its own aerial defenses and missiles to defend its own territory. And even though Danish authorities haven't blamed anyone for these recent drone incursions, regardless, I think this new pattern that we're seeing in Europe, from a Russian perspective, that could possibly push Europe to reconsider its priorities in Ukraine and whether supporting Ukraine to the extent it has done so far is the right approach.

B (12:10)

That's foreign correspondent Suna Rasmussen. Thanks for joining us.

F (12:13)

You're welcome.

B (12:16)

And that's it for what's news for this Friday morning. Today's show is produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Daniel Bach. And I'm Caitlin McCabe for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, have a nice weekend. And thanks for listening.

A (12:42)

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