Attorneys for former FBI Director James Comey argued in a submitting Thursday that the indictment in opposition to their shopper is simply too imprecise and have requested an in depth clarification of what false statements, precisely, Comey allegedly made to Congress.
The dispute is at the coronary heart of a brand new movement to dismiss the case his attorneys additionally filed Thursday, arguing that questions posed to him by GOP Sen. Ted Cruz throughout a 2020 listening to “were fundamentally ambiguous” and that Comey’s solutions are usually not false statements as prosecutors have alleged.
Comey is being charged with making false statements and obstructing Congress. He has pleaded not responsible.
During a Senate listening to in September 2020, Cruz requested a collection of questions each on whether or not Comey had ever been an nameless supply or licensed somebody at the FBI to leak data, whereas including different questions all through.
While Comey instructed Cruz he stood by his testimony from three years prior – the place he mentioned he had by no means been an nameless supply in information experiences or allowed others to be nameless sources – Comey is accused of leaking data about the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a non-public e-mail server via certainly one of his former attorneys.
Comey’s attorneys argue the legislation “does not authorize the government to create confusion by posing an imprecise question and then seek to exploit that confusion by placing an after-the-fact nefarious interpretation on the ensuing benign answer.”
The former director’s attorneys additionally want the choose presiding over the case to launch data from the grand jury who handed up the indictment in opposition to Comey as a result of, they say, prosecutors “may have misstated key factual and legal issues.”
The choose presiding over the case set a listening to for Wednesday to focus on the prosecutor’s movement to overview communication between Comey and his attorneys.
Prosecutors have prompt that some materials in the case relates to communications with Comey’s attorneys and want to give you the chance to overview the materials, which his attorneys object to, noting that the materials is privileged communication and was obtained throughout a separate investigation into the former director.