Lawyers for Comey seek grand jury transcript, bringing fresh challenge to a case pushed by Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers former FBI Director James Comey He wants to review the transcript and audio recording of the grand jury hearing in the criminal case, citing “irregularities” in the process that should have resulted in the dismissal of the indictment brought by President Donald Trump.
The request is one of a series of objections defense attorneys have filed against a criminal case accusing Comey of making false statements to Congress five years ago.
Defense lawyers last week He asked for the case to be dropped before the hearing. because it constituted a revenge prosecution and because they said the hastily appointed US attorney who prepared the indictment was unlawfully appointed to that position.
Comey’s lawyers laid out new arguments against that prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, in a filing Thursday, saying Comey’s inexperience tainted the process, created confusion and raised the possibility that legal and factual errors were presented to the grand jury that returned the indictment.
As an example, they cite the fact that the indictment was secured hours later by only 14 grand jury votes and that Halligan mistakenly signed two separate indictments; one of which involved a charge that the grand jury rejected.
“All available information regarding Ms. Halligan’s initial grand jury presentation reeks of impropriety,” Comey’s lawyers wrote. “It is almost unheard of for a new prosecutor to make his or her first grand jury presentation alone, without the supervision and guidance of an experienced prosecutor to ensure there are no factual or legal errors.”
There was Trump Announces plan to nominate Halligan It comes just one day after acting prosecutor Erik Siebert resigned as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia under pressure from the Trump administration. While declaring his support for Halligan, Trump complained in a Truth Social post to Attorney General Pam Bondi that “nothing is being done” about investigations into some of his enemies and called for action, specifically citing investigations into Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California.
“While such inexperience would not normally meet the defense’s burden in sealing grand jury materials, it should be considered alongside Ms. Halligan’s probable cause to seek an indictment to satisfy the President’s demands, the inaccuracies in the indictment, and the determination of every career prosecutor to make the case that the charges are meritless,” Comey’s attorneys wrote.
In a separate filing Thursday, Comey’s legal team demanded specific details about the conduct at the center of the criminal case and said the brief indictment wasn’t even clear about what Comey alleges he did wrong. They also suggested that there were answers. gave “fundamentally vague questions” It was stated at the Senate hearing that he allegedly lied was “literally true” and therefore the case should be dismissed.
The indictment accuses Comey of misleading the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 30, 2020, in response to questions from Republican Senator Ted Cruz about whether Comey had allowed a story to leak to the media. But Comey’s lawyers say the indictment misrepresents his conversation with Cruz and attributes it to statements Comey did not make.
The defense team says the indictment does not include context for Cruz’s question, which clearly states that he asked Comey if Deputy Director Andrew McCabe would allow him to serve as an anonymous source for the news media. Lawyers say the indictment misleadingly suggests that Cruz’s questioning involved another person, a Columbia University law professor and friend of Comey named Daniel Richman. An earlier FBI investigation into whether Comey disclosed classified information through Richman concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge either man.
“Senator Cruz’s questions are fundamentally vague because people of ordinary intelligence cannot be expected to understand that he intended to ask a broad question about Mr. Comey’s interactions with anyone at the FBI, including Daniel Richman, during a conversation focused on Mr. McCabe,” Comey’s lawyers wrote. “On the contrary, a reasonable person would have quickly realized that Senator Cruz was merely asking whether Mr. Comey had specifically authorized Mr. McCabe to be an anonymous source in the news.”
