Although President Trump was miles away from the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, Wednesday morning, his phrases loomed massive over the arguments earlier than U.S. District Decide Michael Nachmanoff as the federal government sought to defend its case in opposition to former FBI Director James Comey.
Trump’s Sept. 20 social media post demanding that “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”” was on the middle of Comey’s argument that the president was utilizing the justice system as a “cudgel to break and intimidate his political opponents.”
“It’s successfully an admission that this can be a political prosecution,” Comey’s lawyer Michael Dreeben mentioned. “The president is underscoring what he needs finished right here.”
Dreeben argued that by changing the prosecutor main the U.S. lawyer’s workplace in Virginia along with his former staffer and lawyer Lindsey Halligan, Trump was “manipulating the equipment of prosecution” and committing an “egregious violation of bedrock constitutional values.”
“This has to cease,” Dreeben mentioned about Trump’s social media posts concentrating on Comey, arguing “a message must be despatched to the manager department.”
Comey pleaded not guilty in October to at least one rely of false statements and one rely of obstruction of a congressional continuing associated to his testimony earlier than the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020, amid what critics name Trump’s campaign of retribution in opposition to his perceived political foes. Vice President JD Vance has mentioned any such prosecutions are “pushed by regulation and never by politics.”
At Wednesday’s listening to, the federal government’s counsel, Tyler Lemons, repeatedly stumbled and needed to take prolonged pauses as he confronted pointed questions from Decide Nachmanoff concerning the fact-pattern that led to Comey’s indictment — and struggled to make the case that Halligan’s determination to hunt expenses in opposition to him was not on the direct orders of President Trump.
James Comey speaks, Might 30, 2023 in New York Metropolis.
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Pictures
“Ms. Halligan was not directed to carry this prosecution; it was her determination and her determination solely,” Lemons mentioned. “Ms. Halligan was not a puppet.”
In defending the president’s conduct, Lemons argued that it’s “acceptable” for President Trump to publicly accuse his adversaries of breaking the regulation if he believes a criminal offense was dedicated.
“What he has mentioned is, he broke the regulation,” Lemons mentioned. “That has been the main focus of the president’s assertion, and that’s acceptable.”
Towards the tip of the listening to, Decide Nachmanoff turned his consideration to the legitimacy of the indictment itself.
Drilling down into the main points of the charging doc, the decide pressed Lemons to elucidate why two completely different indictments have been issued, going as far as to query why the colour of the ink on the paperwork differed. Lemons struggled to reply his questions, typically asking for permission to seek the advice of with Halligan and his co-counsel.
It was at that time that Nachmanoff referred to as Halligan on to the lectern, and questioned her over the collection of occasions that led to the complete grand jury not being offered or voting on a second indictment that was drafted by her workplace.
Halligan defined that the second indictment was offered and reviewed by the grand jury’s foreperson in addition to one other grand juror, and mirrored the complete grand jury’s full vote on the beforehand rejected indictment.
At that time the courtroom fell fully silent, and Decide Nachmanoff merely responded, “Nicely.”
Dreeben mentioned the difficulty with the grand jury indictment clearly required Decide Nachmanoff to throw out the case.
In his concluding remarks, the decide instructed each events to supply briefings on a 1969 case determined by the Supreme Courtroom during which a defendant’s conviction was overturned as a consequence of faulty briefing earlier than a grand jury — and what bearings that call may now have particularly on Comey’s case.
