President Donald Trump’s former private lawyer Lindsey Halligan had been on the job for simply 4 days as US lawyer when she stood earlier than a grand jury searching for a rare and unprecedented indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.
There was, after all, the grave political implications of an indictment introduced ahead after a president demanded retribution towards his political enemies, with Comey at the prime of the record.
But there additionally was the reality it was the political appointee Halligan alone, with no prior prosecutorial expertise, asking the grand jury to hand up an indictment on two counts of mendacity below oath and certainly one of obstruction of justice – a not-so-subtle signal of protest from the Eastern District of Virginia prosecutors over the energy of the case.
The Alexandria, Virginia, grand jury in the end accredited an indictment charging Comey with two counts – the different false statements cost was rejected – propelling the United States into a brand new section that Trump’s critics warn quantities to a breach of democratic values and a harmful lurch towards authoritarianism.
The federal expenses towards Comey marked the end result of seven days’ price of chaos inside the Justice Department and the US lawyer’s workplace in the Eastern District of Virginia — which has had three completely different officers answerable for the workplace over the previous week.
Trump has been calling for extra blood. The president for months has lamented behind the scenes that whereas he was prosecuted and indicted whereas out of workplace, these he deems his political opponents have confronted no such expenses, sources instructed NCS.
Trump has known as for the prosecutions of New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff, each Democrats. Justice Department senior leaders are advocating for a cost to come rapidly towards former Trump national security adviser John Bolton. And Trump signed an government order on Thursday directing the Justice Department to examine liberal teams, singling out billionaire Democratic donor George Soros as a “likely candidate” for investigation.
“It’s not a list, but I think there will be others,” Trump instructed NCS’s Kevin Liptak on Friday as he departed the White House for the Ryder Cup. “What they’ve done is terrible, I hope, frankly, there are others because you can’t let this happen to a country.”
Thursday’s expenses underscore an enormous shift in the method that the president has channeled the Justice Department to assault his political opponents in contrast to when he first took workplace in 2017.
It was the 2017 firing of Comey that prompted the appointment of particular counsel Robert Mueller to examine attainable Trump marketing campaign connections to Russia and obstruction of justice. To Trump’s dismay, his first lawyer common, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from that case, and senior DOJ leaders and White House officers saved the president at arm’s size from interfering in the probe.
And it was Comey’s 2017 dinner with Trump, when the president requested Comey to “let” go of the investigation into his first nationwide safety adviser Michael Flynn, which grew to become a key element of Mueller’s investigation that discovered Trump likely obstructed justice however couldn’t be charged as a result of he was president.
Now in his second time period, Trump has asserted management over the Justice Department and the prosecutors working for it. The president demanded the ouster of a US lawyer who wouldn’t carry ahead a case, changing him with a fierce loyalist who wasted little time to carry ahead an indictment towards certainly one of the folks Trump blames for the Russia and particular counsel investigations — regardless of attorneys inside the Eastern District of Virginia not too long ago writing a memo detailing their reservations over searching for an indictment.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, who had dinner with Trump at the White House on Wednesday, had considerations about the case towards Comey, sources instructed NCS, although she put out a message of help on social media instantly after information of the indictment broke Thursday and denied NCS’s reporting as a “flat out lie.”
Comey responded to the indictment with a message on social media saying he wouldn’t be intimidated.
“Jim Comey denies the charges filed today in their entirety. We look forward to vindicating him in the courtroom,” Comey’s lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, mentioned in a press release.
The first domino in the chaotic week of occasions main up to Comey’s indictment fell final Friday, when the US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, had been resisting stress to go after Trump’s enemies. That stress, nonetheless, was centered totally on James, the New York lawyer common who gained the civil fraud case towards Trump and his firm, and who has been below investigation for allegations of mortgage fraud.
“Yeah, I want him out, yeah,” Trump mentioned final Friday in response to a query about firing Siebert.
Siebert instructed his workers the similar day he can be stepping down, whereas Trump claimed he had fired the prosecutor.
Regardless of how Seibert was dismissed, Trump wasn’t completed. He posted a message on Truth Social addressed to Bondi on Saturday containing a requirement that prosecutors carry expenses towards Comey, James and Schiff, a longtime Trump nemesis who is being investigated in a distinct US lawyer’s workplace. Attorneys for each James and Schiff have mentioned the allegations of mortgage fraud towards them are baseless.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
Trump known as on his lawyer common to appoint Halligan, a fierce loyalist and former private lawyer, to be interim US lawyer, regardless of her lack of prosecutorial expertise. Maggie Cleary, the first assistant in the prosecutors’ workplace, had initially been put in cost following Seibert’s departure.
Halligan took over as US lawyer on Monday.
While Siebert’s resignation was compelled primarily over the allegations surrounding the New York lawyer common, it was the Comey case dealing with a time crunch — as a result of the five-year statute of limitations on Comey’s congressional testimony was due to expire on Tuesday.
Comey’s testimony occurred earlier than the Senate Judiciary Committee by way of Zoom from his house in northern Virginia on September 30, 2020. He was requested whether or not he stood by prior testimony from 2017 that he didn’t leak or authorize leaks about the FBI investigations into Trump and his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Comey testified that he had not “authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports,” the Justice Department mentioned in its two-page indictment. “That statement was false.”
Former Prosecutor: Comey indictment exhibits “erosion” of guardrails between DOJ and politics
In the years since Trump fired him, Comey has grow to be a outstanding Trump critic, at the same time as some Democrats nonetheless blame his public statements on the Clinton e mail investigation for serving to Trump win the 2016 election.
Comey already confronted questions from federal authorities earlier this yr when he posted a cryptic message displaying shells in the sand on a seashore spelling out “86 47,” which has grow to be a preferred social media code for eradicating Trump from the presidency. Comey was interviewed by US Secret Service brokers over the put up.
Halligan, who had by no means offered to a grand jury, did a crash course to put together with DOJ attorneys and FBI officers earlier than Thursday’s presentation, a supply instructed NCS.
Halligan participated in plenty of “practice runs” and spent hours going by way of the materials in preparation, the supply mentioned.
Halligan has solely ever appeared formally in federal court docket on three circumstances, in accordance to court docket information. Based in Ft. Lauderdale, she represented Trump in all three of the circumstances in the Southern District of Florida, in 2022 and 2023. One of the circumstances is a lawsuit the place Trump sued NCS. (The case was dismissed.)
With the choice on whether or not to cost Comey looming, Halligan was noticed at Justice Department headquarters in Washington this week. Sources instructed NCS that Bondi and different federal prosecutors had considerations about the energy of the case.
The evening earlier than the expenses had been introduced, Bondi had dinner at the White House Rose Garden with Trump at a desk for six.
As the prospect of an indictment got here into focus Thursday, a crowd gathered outdoors the Comey’s residence. Comey’s house sits in a rich neighborhood in northern Virginia simply outdoors of DC, with its personal safety group, pristine landscaping and quiet residents.
A handful of neighbors got here out to ask why a row of cameras had been pointed at the house all of Thursday – and one known as safety to try to take away media from the neighborhood, a police officer instructed NCS.
Members of Comey’s household would periodically come outdoors to test the mail or drive to and from the house, waving to the group of producers and cameramen who waited for Comey’s potential emergence.
Two separate pizza deliveries made their method to Comey’s house, neither of which the household ordered. Both orders — together with two giant pizzas from Domino’s and one 12-inch Original from Papa John’s with a Pepsi — mentioned they might be paid for by money upon supply.
“Please knock or ring doorbell and hand it to customer,” one order’s directions reviewed by NCS learn.
“Now what do I do?” one supply man requested when the order was turned away.
The federal grand jury in Alexandria meets in the basement of the courthouse, away from public view.
Just earlier than 5 p.m. ET, the courthouse put a giant “locked” signal on the exterior door, which means no extra members of the public might go inside the courthouse, whereas the reporters and others gathered inside awaited Halligan and a possible indictment.
Slightly over an hour later — nicely previous the time grand juries sometimes keep — Magistrate Judge Lindsey Vaala obtained the indictment handed up by the grand jury. The decide introduced the new case towards Comey and mentioned publicly that 14 jurors agreed to indict on the counts of false statements in the jurisdiction of a congressional continuing and obstruction of a congressional continuing.
Vaala mentioned there was a 3rd depend offered to the grand jury, which it didn’t approve for the indictment. A court docket document made public on Thursday confirmed that the grand jury voted “no” on indicting Comey on a second alleged false assertion to Congress — a really uncommon incidence in the federal court docket system.
But earlier than the decide introduced the indictment, there was a wave of confusion over two paperwork that had been offered, which was not regular working process.
The decide mentioned she was confused and that this had “never happened before,” although the paperwork was sorted out with the grand jury foreperson and Halligan.
“I haven’t seen it,” Halligan mentioned of the two paperwork.
“Your signatures are on both,” Vaala responded.
Timothy Belevetz, a former assistant US lawyer in the Eastern District of Virginia, mentioned he couldn’t recall a grand jury ever turning down an indictment in his eight-plus years as a prosecutor in the workplace.
“It’s very rare for a count that’s been presented to the grand jury to be rejected,” Belevetz mentioned.
As the indictment was handed up, there was one other prosecutor in the courtroom: Comey’s son-in-law Troy Edwards Jr., who labored as a prosecutor in the similar US lawyer’s workplace now indicting the former FBI director. Edwards went in to converse with the decide privately in chambers for about half-hour earlier than the public court docket continuing.
Not lengthy after the indictment was introduced, Edwards submitted his resignation.
“To uphold my oath to the Constitution and country,” Edwards wrote in a one-sentence letter to Halligan, “I hereby resign as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in the Department of Justice effective immediately.”
NCS’s Casey Gannon, Kristen Holmes and Alayna Treene contributed to this report.