It appears the DOJ’s case against James Comey may be in serious jeopardy and the Biden-appointee judge may end up throwing it out, with prejudice.
Here’s what looks like a decent report from taxpayer-funded Politico:
The Trump administration’s criminal prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey appeared to be in serious jeopardy Wednesday as the federal judge overseeing the case repeatedly questioned the validity of the grand jury indictment charging Comey with lying to and obstructing Congress.
U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff pressed prosecutors during a hearing on the events around the Sept. 25 charges against Comey, questioning whether the entire grand jury ever saw the two-count indictment that a magistrate judge received after the grand jurors rejected one of three charges proposed by interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan.
Nachmanoff, a Biden appointee, was so intent on establishing the precise sequence of events that day that he briefly called Halligan to the courtroom lectern, prompting her first substantive public remarks since she secured the charges.
“You’re counsel of record. You can address the court,” Nachmanoff said to Halligan, asking her to explain whether grand jurors beyond the foreperson were present when the original indictment and a narrower substitute one were presented to a magistrate judge.
“The foreperson and another grand juror was also present,” Halligan said, apparently confirming that all the grand jury members present that day did not see the substitute indictment prepared after the group declined one of the false-statement charges Halligan urged.
Nachmanoff did not say precisely what action he was contemplating about the possible irregularity in the grand jury process, but his intense focus on the issue suggested he may view it as critical and, perhaps, fatal to the government’s case.
As he addressed Halligan, the judge declared he “just wanted to make sure” that indictment had never been seen by the full grand jury.
Halligan confirmed that it had not. She then sat down after speaking for less than a minute.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tyler Lemons, who handled the bulk of the argument Wednesday, suggested the replacement indictment was a necessity due to the grand jury turning down one of the proposed charges. “They really had no other way to return it,” he said.
Although there is no pending defense motion challenging the indictment on the grounds the judge raised, a lawyer for Comey, Michael Dreeben, seized on the issue. “There is no indictment,” he said, adding that the statute of limitations ran out Sept. 30, making the procedural misstep “tantamount to a complete bar” to prosecution.
I’m not going to weigh in because, as I’ve said many times, I’m not a legal beagle by any stretch. I’ll just say that it doesn’t sound good that the entire grand jury didn’t get to see the replacement indictment.