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lawyers for the former FBI director James Comey Wants to review transcripts and audio recordings of grand jury proceedings in his criminal case, saying there were “irregularities” in the process that should result in the president’s indictment being dismissed. donald trump,
The request is one of a series of challenges that defense lawyers are waging against a criminal case in which Comey was accused of making false statements to Congress five years ago.
Defense lawyers last week sought to have the case dismissed before trial on the grounds that it was a retaliatory prosecution and because they say the hastily appointed U.S. attorney who filed the indictment was illegally appointed to the position.
Comey’s lawyers presented new arguments against that prosecutor, Lindsay Halligan, saying in a filing Thursday that her inexperience had bogged down the process, created confusion and increased the likelihood that legal and factual errors were presented to the grand jury that returned the indictment.
As examples, they cite the fact that the indictment was secured after hours with only 14 grand juror votes and that Halligan mistakenly signed two separate indictments – including an indictment that was dismissed by the grand jury.
Comey’s lawyers wrote, “All available information regarding Ms. Halligan’s first grand jury appearance smacks of impropriety.” “It is virtually 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 the absence of factual and legal errors.”
Trump announced his plans to nominate Halligan as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, just a day after prosecutor Eric Siebert resigned under pressure from the Trump administration. While announcing his support for Halligan, Trump complained in a Truth Social post directed at Attorney General Pam Bondi that “nothing is being done” on investigations of some of his enemies and called for action, specifically referencing the investigations of Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California.
“Although such inexperience would not normally satisfy the defense’s burden to unseal grand jury materials, that inexperience must be viewed alongside Ms. Halligan’s likely motive to obtain an indictment to satisfy the President’s demands, the inaccuracies in the indictment, and the determination of each career prosecutor to consider the case that charges were not warranted,” Comey’s lawyers wrote.
In separate filings Thursday, Comey’s legal team also requested specific details about the conduct at the center of the criminal case, saying the brief indictment is not even clear about what Comey is accused of doing. He also claimed that the answers he gave to “fundamentally vague questions” at the Senate hearing on which he is accused of lying were “substantially true” and, therefore, the case should be dismissed.
The indictment accuses Comey of misleading the Senate Judiciary Committee in response to questions from Republican senators on September 30, 2020. ted cruz About whether Comey authorized news media leaks. But Comey’s lawyers say the indictment mischaracterizes his exchanges with Cruz, attributing them to statements Comey did not make.
The defense team says the indictment removed the context of Cruz’s question to make it clear he was asking Comey whether he had authorized his deputy director, Andrew McCabe, to serve as an anonymous source for the news media. Lawyers say the indictment misleadingly suggests that Cruz’s questioning is related to another man, a Columbia University law professor and Comey friend named Daniel Richtman. An earlier FBI investigation into whether Comey had disclosed classified information through Richman concluded that there was insufficient evidence to charge any individuals.
“Senator Cruz’s questions are fundamentally vague because people of normal intelligence would not be expected to understand that he intended to ask a broad question about Mr. Comey’s interactions with anyone at the FBI — including Daniel Richtman at the FBI — during a conversation focused on Mr. McCabe,” Comey’s lawyers wrote. “To the contrary, a reasonable person would have easily understood that Senator Cruz was merely asking whether Mr. Comey had specifically authorized Mr. McCabe to be an anonymous source in news reports.”