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More than a hundred former Justice Department officials and 13 scholars of authoritarianism have thrown their support behind the former FBI director James Comeyask a judge to throw out The Trump administration has filed criminal charges against him.
In an amicus brief reportedly filed in federal court in Virginia on Monday, former federal prosecutors ranging from Barack Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder to George W. Bush’s nominee Peter Kessler supported Comey’s argument that the prosecution is “retaliatory.”
comes after this Comey’s lawyers last week accused the Justice Department of “singleing him out” for prosecution because of what they said was President Donald Trump’s “personal grudge” and “malice.” On Comey’s constitutionally protected criticism of the President.
“Overall, the totality of these circumstances indicate that the prosecution [Comey] “Acting free from personal bias, partisan animus, or divided loyalties, the exercise of even-handed judgment by a disinterested prosecutor was not – as required by the Constitution and the formal policies of the Department of Justice,” read Monday’s filing. according to Washington Post,
“Instead, it represents an act of personal vendetta by the President, acting through the United States Attorney he recently elected.”
Lawyers also filed a separate amicus brief on Monday representing 13 scholars of authoritarianism and democratic retreat, including renowned “end of history” theorist Francis Fukuyama.
They wrote, “As we have seen in the countries studied, abuse of the justice system to punish political opponents undermines the rule of law and harms democratic governance.”
“Here, the publicly available evidence demonstrates that Mr. Comey was targeted for prosecution on the basis of unjustified hostility, and other such retaliatory prosecutions are already in the works.
“The Court should not ignore this broader context and the dangerous precedent set by this prosecution and grant Mr. Comey’s motion to dismiss the indictment.”
Details of the former officers were not visible in the court’s online document system till Monday night.
Federal prosecutors have charged Comey with obstruction and lying to Congress in 2020 In sworn testimony on his role in the Trump-Russia investigation four years ago,
During the 2020 hearing, Comey said he stood by his previous testimony in 2017, in which he insisted that he had not authorized anyone at the FBI to leak information to the press about the Trump investigation or the 2016 investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails.
The DOJ’s indictment claims this was false but presents little concrete evidence in court. The charges were brought after multiple prosecutors filed charges against him. It was reportedly determined that the case had no merit,
Ultimately Trump had to do this Replace him with his former personal lawyer Lindsay HalliganThe indictment was not signed by anyone but him, which Comey’s lawyers say was highly unusual, and was approved by a grand jury in Virginia. with a majority of 14 to 23,
Comey has pleaded innocent to both charges.
Samantha Bateman, one of the former DOJ officials behind the amicus brief, acknowledged that courts often do not agree with such documents and that retaliatory prosecution is a high hurdle.
but he told Washington Post He and his colleagues hoped that their expertise would help convince the court that such a decision was necessary in this case.