A magistrate judge has ordered the Justice Department to turn over grand jury materials to former FBI Director James Comey, finding a real prospect that “government misconduct” tainted the case against Comey.
In his ruling today, “Judge William Fitzpatrick notes, among other things, that” acting U.S. Attorney “Lindsey Halligan made two false statements of the law when responding to questions by grand jurors.” The “record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding,” wrote the judge in his ruling.
In September, “Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted…days after President Donald Trump publicly said that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi should prosecute him and two other political adversaries,” reported NBC News.
The case against Comey was weak — “the weakest wet fart of a case” — and would likely not lead to a conviction, notes Andy Craig of the Institute for Humane Studies. Craig says the indictment resulted from a “horrifying and corrupt” pressure on prosecutors to bring the case, which was brought “because the president barked an order for DOJ to go after” Comey, even though “this is about the weakest wet fart of a case they could have done.”
Because Comey is probably innocent, federal prosecutors had previously refused to bring the case against Comey, including President Trump’s own appointee, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert. Siebert was forced to resign and was replaced by Lindsey Halligan, one of President Trump’s former defense attorneys, who has no prosecutorial experience at all.
As NBC explains, the indictment against Comey “includes two counts: making a false statement and obstruction of a congressional proceeding. Comey has denied any wrongdoing.”
