As I started this piece my TV was on and I heard at any moment former FBI Director James Comey will be formally arraigned in federal court in the eastern District of Virginia. Trump wanted this. In fact he DEMANDED it. He might well come to regret his petulance and make no mistake. This is all about Trump’s toxic mix of petulance and vindictiveness. Comey no doubt will shell out plenty for the great lawyer (Patrick Fitzgerald) who is representing him BUT I truly think he looks forward to making Trump look like a fool by the time this is over and he walks away a free man.
The case against Comey is a nothingburger. Or rather, since this is a Trump creation a ‘nothing-berder.’ During his first administration Trump had Special Counsel John Durham go after Comey (and hard) and Durham couldn’t come up with Jack. Trump also had AG Barr try to find something to charge Comey with and came up with jack. The DOJ’s Inspector General looked into the allegations Comey had authorized a ‘leak’, in actuality simply updating a reporter on the going nowhere case and didn’t find any wrongdoing by Comey either.
This all boils down to a single statement by Comey given as he answered a question during a Senate Oversight Hearing during COVID. That detail is important because due to COVID protocols at the time Comey testified remotely from his home in northern Virginia across the river from DC. The ‘crime’ of giving ‘false testimony’/’obstruction of Congress’ took place in the eastern District of Virginia because that’s where Comey actually was. It matters because that federal court handles a LOT of high profile federal cases including many with serious national security implications. It’s also known as “The Rocket Dockett” due to the speed in which cases are resolved. Even complex ones get moved along to a swift conclusion including ones that go to trial.
Trump of course wants this dragged out so he can (so he believes) publicly flay Comey. That was never going to happen. Worse for Trump is the federal speedy trial statute. Because the indictment was obtained and made public the clock has already started. Unless Comey wants a delay his trial must begin with seventy days of interim U.S. Attorney Halligan’s botched filing of the indictment. The freaking judge had to help her get it right! All that is bad for Trumpty’s plans, but Comey himself said that night ‘Let’s have a trial.’
Remember, Trump wanted this. He’s been itching for it and finally publicly demanded AG Bondi get it done. When Trump’s own appointee for U.S. Attorney in that jurisdiction (a respected DOJ professional with over a thousand cases under his belt) looked at the so-called evidence he came to the same conclusion everyone before him had: There was no “there” there. His senior staff wrote a summary explaining why there was no case and Trump had the guy fired. Then replaced him with a hack.
Lindsey Halligan IS an actual lawyer who worked at a firm in Florida that specialized in insurance – defending insurers from those filing claims. She took part in three federal cases but had no courtroom experience. She got a gig with Trump 2.0 and was at the Smithsonian working to rewrite history to reflect Trump’s effed up version of it. Despite her having no criminal law experience at any level she had ONE qualification that mattered to Trump. She would find some way or other to get Comey indicted. So she’s in the job albeit perhaps not even legally. That’s a separate and longer topic.
What’s important is we learned senior staff presented her the same ‘There’s no “there” there’ memo they’d prepared for the guy who got fired. It seems no one wanted to present the case to a grand jury so Halligan wound up doing it herself. AND if reporting is to be believed had to cherry pick statements and omit exculpatory information to get the two indictments she got. The grand jury refused on a third charge. I’m betting they are pissed about having essentially lied to. If they feel (ill) used I can understand why.
So we have Trump publicly demanding all this, Comey with enough connections to know a hack who didn’t have a clue had to present the case to the grand jury AND that there was no way to get an indictment without fudging things. No wonder within hours he was smiling and saying ‘Let’s have a trial.” Trump hasn’t done himself any favors since then. I won’t recount all of it hear but since you’re reading this you know how Trumpty wanted a bigly show of a “Perp Walk’ for Comey. One person was fired for resisting. But the effort continued, and a search for a team of ‘Big, beefy federal agents to arrest Comey at his home (did they talk about in the middle of the night so they could have cameras film Comey in his pajamas?) and surround him as they frog-marched him up the courthouse steps.
Apparently (I keep glancing at the news on TV) none of that happened. Perhaps there was someone with a bit of common sense Trump sometimes listens to who (accurately) told him Comey already had grounds to vile a motion for dismissal for ‘Selective/Vindictive’ prosecution. Video of the kind of perp walk Trumpty wanted would be enough evidence in and of itself that this was nothing more than abuse of the justice system to get payback on someone who refused to kiss his fat white ass.
Let’s take a look back at WHY this is going on, via this article from The Associated Press. Even before being sworn in Trump had a meeting with Comey and asked for “loyalty.” Comey not only wouldn’t pledge his troth, but given that and other troubling aspects of that meeting started drafting a memo in the car about it. And he filed it officially. It’s sitting in FBI files as a matter of record and you can be sure we’ll be seeing it again in the weeks ahead. So that’s how it started and it only got worse between Trump and Comey from there:
The dynamic was fraught from the start, with Comey briefing Trump weeks before he took office on the existence of uncorroborated and sexually salacious gossip in a dossier of opposition research compiled by a former British spy.
In their first several private interactions, Comey would later reveal, Trump asked his FBI director to pledge his loyalty to him and to drop an FBI investigation into his administration’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. Trump also asked Comey to publicly reveal that Trump himself was not under investigation as part of the broader inquiry into Russian election interference, something Comey opted not to do.
Comey was abruptly fired in May 2017 while at an event in Los Angeles, with Trump later saying he was thinking about “this Russia thing” when he decided to terminate him. The firing was investigated by Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller as an act of potential obstruction of justice.
Trump is more than butt-hurt about Comey not ‘submitting’ to him. He’s goddamned angry at Comey because the latter did his job. He spent much of the rest of his administration trying to get people who unlike Halligan had real, serious legal chops to ‘get’ Comey and the man hadn’t done anything wrong. Well, he didn’t break any laws or even violate DOJ procedure but for Trump he did something far, far worse. He not only refused to pledge loyalty to Trump he allowed the FBI to investigate the Trump campaign connection with Russia during the 2016 election.
OF COURSE this is a vindictive and selective prosecution. There are ample ground (probably) to dismiss the charges with prejudice. The question I’m waiting to hear about is whether Fitzpatrick will file a motion or at least intent to do so to have the indictment dismissed. I really think Comey wants a trial despite the literal small fortune he’ll have to pay to Fitgerald. He can make Trump, his WH team and AG Bondi look REALLY bad by having a trial. Exposing how weak their case is and the lengths Trump’s diseased mind will go to in order to punish those who offend him.
Don’t forget the fact that Comey, a lifelong Republican allowed personal animus to override professional judgement and DOJ standards to trash candidate Hillary Clinton. Had he not done so there likely wouldn’t have been a President Trump in the first place. Maybe he’s decided to do penance by paying for a top lawyer to defend him in a trial where he can embarrass Trump over, and over and over again by exposing the lame “evidence” with each witness and exhibit. It should be quite the show and oh how great it would be if FINALLY this was the case where cameras, or at least live audio was allowed in a federal courtroom!
The thing to watch for in the days ahead is whether a motion to dismiss if filed. Fitzgerald will I’m sure be prepared to argue such a motion the moment it’s filed. The judge of course will want briefings from both sides so the question is how long he will give the government to respond. Remember however this is the ROCKET DOCKETT. Trump has a lifetime of successfully dragging things out but he doesn’t make the rules here. The clock is as I said already ticking and while a hearing on a motion to dismiss might provide grounds to push past the seventy day mark it won’t be much. I’d figured December but it’s just been reported a trial date of Jan. 5 has been set.
Legal pundits are saying no way. I’m not so sure about that. All this talk about motions and arguments/hearing and so on I think will surprise them. If I had to guess, Comey decided not to mess with everyone’s (as in the jury’s) holidays. Let everyone but the lawyers have Christmas and buckle down after the holidays.
It’s noteworthy that Halligan didn’t present the case herself. MORE noteworthy is that no one in her own office did either. She had to import a team from down here in North Carolina! That doesn’t bode well for the government. So the trial might start in December instead of November. My wouldn’t Trump be surprised to get a big-ass stocking full of coal!
For now Comey had pled Not Guilty and wants a trial. Good for him, and I don’t even like the guy for reasons I’ve already suggested. The clock is ticking and for all the legal pundits hand-wringing if Comey wants to exercise his right to a speedy trial (and I think he will) he can do so. The judge setting a trial date for early Jan. suggests he doesn’t want this to drag out either. That’s not how things are done in that federal district. If prosecutors walk into a court with a case then judges expect them to be ready to present it to a jury. If Halligan had to round up people from elsewhere because the experience professionals in her office either said NO or she didn’t feel like they’d try hard enough the judge won’t care.
The ONLY person that can slow this down in a major way is Comey. If he wants a speedy trial, says (through his lawyer) let’s get this (shit) show on the road then the government either has to appear and present their case or Comey walks. With jeopardy attached. There’s no way Trump and Bondo/the DOJ come out of this looking like anything but fools. Trump’s wish to see Comey charged has been granted. Again I’ll say he (and others, Bondi and especially Halligan) will wind up being sorry about not having been careful what he wished for.
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I hate the expression, ‘There was no “there” there.’ It’s stupid and confusing. What? Where?
Everyone, please stop using it.
Dude, the phrase has been around for nearly a century. American author and poet Gertrude Stein used it in a 1937 autobiography describing a visit to her hometown of Oakland and her childhood home had been razed and the land on which it had stood being replaced with new housing.
It simply means “the indicated thing, person, or other matter has no distinctive identity, or no significant characteristics, or no functional center point; nothing significant exists in that place; nothing significant is occurring in that situation.”
Just because YOU hate a phrase is completely irrelevant. It’s known as an “idiom” just like “beat around the bush” and “pay through the nose.”
Also, the picture at the top is bogus, but I’m sure it was not intended to be real. Comey is several inches taller than those two.
Dude, it’s a meme. Most of us look at something like that knowing it’s satire, the creator’s attempt to convey ridiculousness. That is after all what this whole sorry assed excuse of a criminal case against Comey is – RIDICULOUS. Patel and Bongino literally cosplay FBI “bigwigs” and it’s hard to find any photos of either of them where they don’t look ridiculous. Both have outrageously inflated beliefs about how “great” and “tough” they are. They think they are actually as big and tough as the titles of the jobs they hold. They are both men of average at best physical stature and completely unqualified for their jobs. Comey might not be a proverbial ‘tough guy” having never served as a front line federal agent but he had a long and distinguished career at DOJ and as a prosecutor stared down and convicted an awful lot of very bad people. Plus, as you realize he’s quite a bit taller than average. 6’8″ in fact. He towers over the other two in real life but I guarantee you they have fantasies about being “bigger and badder” than Comey, hence that meme poking fun at them.
Get it now?