How Rookie Mistakes Could Sink the Comey Prosecution

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Hey, everyone. Ellie here wishing you a happy Friday, the Friday before Thanksgiving. Is it too early to start counting down to Thanksgiving? I don't think so. Not in my book. I'm getting ready. I've got my turkey brining kit ready. Kids are coming home from college. I'm excited. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving if we don't do another piece. Okay, before we get to the heart of this week's piece, the story we are not...

Primarily focusing on is the Jeffrey Epstein story. But the big news this week is Congress overwhelmingly passed quite a turnaround from a lot of members of Congress, but overwhelmingly passed this law requiring. DOJ to release the Epstein files. Donald Trump signed it late Wednesday night. I was ready to go on air with CNN about the Comey story, the other story. And suddenly they were like, where are you? Run to set. Let's discuss. If you think this means.

that we will now all see the Epstein files, I urge you to think again, because there is a massive loophole, I guess, or exception in this law that says, DOJ can choose not to disclose. They can choose to withhold information relating to ongoing investigations. Now, that is ordinarily...

the way this would be done. In fact, ordinarily, there would not be a law saying DOJ has to crack open the books. This case is extraordinary, however, and we have a law in place now. But what this means as a practical matter is it's going to be up to Pam Bondi. And if you trust Pam Bondi, God bless. I don't.

I think a lot of people don't and for good reason. I did give her the benefit of the doubt. You all may remember I said when she was sworn in, I wrote a piece for the New York Times saying, let's see, let's give her a chance. I think she's had that chance and shown what she's made of. But it's going to be up to Pam Bondi and she can.

look at any document she wants or any piece of a document say nope that relates to an ongoing investigation and by the way they just decided to reopen these investigations days ago when Trump said to do so. So we're going to see more documents, but don't take this to be the full files. Okay, on with this week's main piece. It's about the Comey case. A lot of...

interesting developments, I guess we could say, concerning developments if you're looking at it from DOJ's point of view. As always, send me your thoughts, questions, comments. Love to hear them. Lettersatcafe.com.

It's been plain from the start that the Justice Department's prosecution of Jim Comey springs from Donald Trump's desire for payback. against a bitter political enemy. Exhibit A, the president's own September 20th, 2025 truth social post stating exactly that. Now it seems the DOJ has coupled bad motives.

with straightforward incompetence. When rookie prosecutors take over complex cases, it turns out, rookie mistakes happen. In a blistering ruling issued this week, federal magistrate judge Bill Fitzpatrick peeled the bark. off the prosecution's abject mishandling of the Comey grand jury. The decision is currently being considered by the higher ranking district judge presiding over the case. Now, I know Bill Fitzpatrick professionally. Before he took the bench, he served for over 20.

years at the Justice Department, during which he established himself as the prosecutor's prosecutor. Measured, calm, hyper competent, decent. And he's no leftist. Fitzpatrick became the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey during Trump's first presidency. In contrast to Magistrate Judge Fitzpatrick, consider our bumbling novice prosecutor, Lindsay Halligan.

Days after Trump's public demand for Comey's hide, then U.S. attorney Eric Sieber, an experienced Trump-appointed conservative, resigned in part because he doubted the merits of the Comey case. Into the void stepped Halligan. an insurance lawyer who had never touched a criminal prosecution. She had, however, demonstrated absolute political fealty to the president. Halligan had represented Trump personally, and she notably led a White House review of the Smithsonian Museum.

for, quote, corrosive ideology, end quote. Remarkably, Halligan's first ever grand jury appearance on her fourth day in office was on the Comey case. It went exactly as poorly as you'd expect.

Understand just how hard it is for a prosecutor to screw up so badly in the grand jury that the case itself faces an existential threat. You present your evidence through a friendly FBI agent who worked the case with you with no defense lawyer present and no judge presiding.

You explain the basics of the proposed indictment. You read off some standard form-based instructions and you avoid committing flagrant violations of the defendant's constitutional rights, if possible. Easy to blow up your own indictment at the grand jury stage. is to shank a two-foot putt in mini-golf. Yet here we are. Judge Fitzpatrick found first that Halligan made, quote, a fundamental and highly prejudicial misstatement of the law, end quote.

Now, we don't know exactly what she said because her quotes are redacted from the ruling, presumably to preserve the secrecy of grand jury proceedings. But the judge summarizes and describes multiple prosecutorial screw ups. For starters, the newbie prosecutor inexplicably suggested to the grand jury that Comey would have to explain himself on the stand or somehow had an obligation to testify on his own behalf.

Anyone who has ever watched a cop show, you have the right to remain silent and all that, knows better. It's the Fifth Amendment. That's either stunning prosecutorial incompetence or it's malice. And according to Judge Fitzpatrick, Halligan, quote, suggested to the grand jury that they did not have to rely only on the record before them to determine probable cause.

but could be assured the government had more evidence, perhaps better evidence that would be presented at trial. End quote. You'll not be shocked to learn that grand juries can indict. based only on the actual case before them and not on some hypothetical theoretical proof that might or might not exist. In a Wednesday filing, prosecutors disputed the judge's characterization of Halligan's comments.

Making matters worse, the judge found that Halligan's mishandling of key evidence, quote, may rise to the level of government misconduct, end quote. Now, a bit of background is necessary here. In a separate investigation back in 2019 and 2020 relating.

to public leaking of information on the Hillary Clinton private email server case, the Justice Department obtained search warrants to seize evidence from the electronic devices of a lawyer named Daniel Richman. Now, Richman is a key player in the current indictment. Halligan's core allegation appears to be that when he was FBI director, Comey authorized Richmond to leak to the press, but then lied about it to Congress. I say appears because the indictment itself is a jumbled mess.

When Halligan presented her case to the grand jury in 2025, the judge found she, quote, relied heavily, end quote, on evidence of communications between Comey and Richmond that DOJ had obtained through those search warrants. years ago, back in 2019 and 2020. That raises two problems first. prosecutors cannot dig through old files and use whatever evidence they find in any old manner they deem fit. The 2019 and 2020 search warrants were issued in a different case.

for a limited purpose to find evidence of specific crime prosecutors cannot simply repurpose that evidence in an entirely different legal and investigative setting second Some of the exchanges between Comey and Richmond, who represented Comey at the time, appeared to contain privileged attorney-client communications. Undaunted by this minor constitutional inconvenience, Halligan apparently forged ahead and used those potentially privileged communications as part of her case to indict Comey.

On top of all that, it seems Halligan fumbled the basic logistics of the grand jury process. The Justice Department initially presented a proposed three-count indictment. The grand jury rejected count one. but approved counts two and three. It seems prosecutors then created a new document which eliminated count one, which the grand jury had rejected, and renumbered counts two and three, which the grand jury had accepted. as counts one and two. It's mostly ministerial.

Except that Halligan never presented the second revised indictment to the full grand jury, but rather had the foreperson and one other grand juror approve it. It's unclear whether this technical flub will require dismissal, but it's a misstep. that any experienced prosecutor would have easily avoided in the first place.

This latest barrage of prosecutorial blunders or worse now joins other substantial bases for Comey to seek dismissal of the indictment. Given that Trump overtly targeted Comey for political payback. The former FBI director already has about as strong a motion for vindictive or selective prosecution as you'll ever see. And Comey has a reasonable, if novel, technical claim that Halligan was unconstitutionally appointed in the first place.

The Comey trial is slated to start in just over one month, January 5th. But given Halligan's jaw-dropping incompetence, it's increasingly unlikely this mess ever makes it to a jury. at all. When it comes to payback indictments and political operatives play acting as prosecutors, it's all fun and games until cases fall apart. Thanks for listening, everyone. Stay safe and stay informed.