from the incompetent-leading-the-blind-leading-the-stupid dept
Sure, as I already wrote about, the indictment in opposition to James Comey was already thrown out as a result of Halligan’s improper appointment, nevertheless it’s additionally price protecting how badly she fucked up even when she had been appointed legally. These instances have been destined for the dustbin it doesn’t matter what, as a result of Halligan had no thought what she was doing. Late final week only one instance of that madness got here out in courtroom.
The entire case hasn’t gone effectively with Halligan dealing with the prosecution. The indictment delivered to a federal decide contained noticeable errors, essentially the most notable being a discrepancy between the variety of legal counts offered to the grand jury. The one Halligan delivered contained two completely different Rely Two’s within the prices, with supposedly one of many three prices (regardless that solely two are listed) authorized for prosecution by the grand jury.
Halligan instructed the decide she had solely seen and signed the much less fucked up model of the grand jury indictment however the decide identified each variations given to her had been signed by Trump’s just lately put in DOJ prosecutor.
Right here’s how Halligan dealt with that:
“Okay. It has your signature on it,” [Judge] Vaala instructed Halligan, who responded, “Okay. Properly.”
That was practically two months in the past. Two months later, nothing’s getting any higher, smarter, or extra competently dealt with.
A federal Justice of the Peace decide mentioned on Monday that the legal case in opposition to James B. Comey, the previous F.B.I. director, could possibly be in hassle due to a sequence of obvious errors dedicated in entrance of the grand jury by Lindsey Halligan, the inexperienced prosecutor picked by President Trump to supervise the matter.
[…]
In his ruling, Choose Fitzpatrick mentioned that when Ms. Halligan appeared — by herself — in entrance of the grand jury in September to hunt an indictment accusing Mr. Comey of mendacity to and obstructing Congress in 2020 testimony, she made at the very least two “basic and extremely prejudicial” misstatements of the regulation. He additionally identified that the grand jury supplies he ordered her to show over to him for his evaluate this month gave the impression to be incomplete and “probably don’t mirror the complete proceedings.”
There’s extra within the ruling [PDF] handed down by Choose Fitzpatrick, however nothing in there suggests Halligan didn’t fuck up repeatedly whereas (mis)dealing with this case. It additionally factors out that Trump’s DOJ and FBI engaged in some doable misconduct when conducting searches of units seized from Comey’s private lawyer, Daniel Richman.
Not solely did the DOJ not take steps to separate something that may have been privileged communications between the lawyer and his consumer, it’s now (5 years later) attempting to make use of info obtained then to assist the present case in opposition to Comey.
Right here, the federal government was permitted to look all the Richman supplies however licensed to grab solely proof associated to violations of 18 U.S.C. § 641 (Theft and Conversion of Stolen Authorities Property) and 18 U.S.C. § 793 (Illegal Gathering or Transmission of Nationwide Protection Info), each markedly completely different offenses than these with which Mr. Comey is at present charged.
[…]
The federal government seems to have conflated its obligation to guard privileged info–an obligation it approached casually at finest on this case–with its responsibility to grab solely these supplies licensed by the Court docket. This cavalier perspective in direction of a primary tenet of the Fourth Modification and a number of courtroom orders left the federal government unchecked to rummage via all the info seized from Mr. Richman, and apparently, within the authorities’s eyes, to take action once more anytime they selected. The Arctic Haze investigation was closed in September 2021, with no prices filed. The Richman supplies sat dormant with the FBI till the summer time of 2025, when the Bureau selected to rummage via them once more.
Whereas none of that’s essentially Halligan’s fault, if she have been a seasoned prosecutor slightly than simply one other Trump loyalist, she might need realized this proof was presumably unusable and withheld it from her (and her alone) grand jury presentation.
However the remainder of it’s undoubtedly her fault. As Anna Bower factors out in her extraordinarily informative Bluesky thread, Halligan tried to salvage an obvious mistake by the grand jury foreperson — a misplaced signature that made it seem like no legal prices have been being forwarded — by getting a signature on substitute paperwork which might mirror the grand jury’s choice to indict Comey on Rely Two (eradicating the unique Rely One rejected by the grand jury). This explains the brand new paperwork with two Rely Two’s, nevertheless it actually doesn’t clarify why Halligan thought she may slide the edited paperwork previous the courtroom.
And that every one provides as much as a decide who was clearly fed up:
The Court docket acknowledges that the reduction sought by the protection is never granted. Nonetheless, the file factors to a disturbing sample of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to probably undermine the integrity of the grand jury continuing. Due to this fact, on this case, “the Court docket has earlier than it a uncommon instance of a legal defendant who can really make a ‘particularized and factually based mostly’ exhibiting that grounds exist to assist the proposition that irregularities might have occurred within the grand jury proceedings and will justify the dismissal of a number of counts of the indictment.”
Now, a rational president who wishes to be represented by competent professionals would have already acted to exchange this prosecutor and demanded solutions from the FBI. This isn’t a rational president neither is it a traditional presidency. The administration that has turned the idea of govt energy into an absolute monster will sweep this loss below the rug with the remainder of its losses whereas claiming the system it controls is by some means stacked in opposition to it. And it’ll, in fact play effectively, with the GOP voting base, which loves nothing greater than being instructed that everybody else however themselves are accountable for his or her private failures.
Filed Beneath: doj, james comey, lindsey halligan, pam bondi, political prosecution, trump administration
