WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for former FBI Director James Comey want to review a transcript and audio recording of the grand jury proceedings in his criminal case, citing what they say were “irregularities” in the process that should result in the dismissal of an indictment pushed by President Donald Trump.
The request is one of a series of challenges defense attorneys have launched against a criminal case accusing Comey of making a false statement to Congress five years ago.
Defense attorneys last week asked that the case be dismissed before trial, arguing that it constituted vindictive prosecution and because they say the hastily appointed U.S. attorney who brought the charge was illegally appointed to the position.
Comey’s lawyers made new arguments against that prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, saying in a filing Thursday that her inexperience had tainted the process, created confusion and raised the possibility of legal and factual errors being presented to the grand jury that returned the indictment.
As examples, they cite the fact that the indictment was obtained after hours with only 14 grand jury votes and that Halligan mistakenly signed two separate indictments, including one that contained a charge that the grand jury rejected.
“All available information about Ms. Halligan’s first appearance before a grand jury smacks of impropriety,” Comey’s lawyers wrote. “It is virtually unheard of for a new prosecutor to make her first grand jury presentation alone, without the supervision and guidance of an experienced prosecutor to ensure the absence of legal and factual errors.”
Trump had announced his plan to appoint Halligan as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia just one day after the prosecutor holding the position, Erik Siebert, resigned under pressure from the Trump administration. Declaring his support for Halligan, Trump complained in a Truth Social post to Attorney General Pam Bondi that “nothing is being done” in investigations into some of his enemies and called for action, specifically referencing investigations into Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California.
“Although that inexperience alone would not normally satisfy the defense’s burden of disclosing the grand jury materials, that inexperience must be viewed alongside Ms. Halligan’s probable motive in obtaining an indictment to satisfy the President’s demands, the inaccuracies in the indictment, and the determination of each career prosecutor to consider the case that the charges were not warranted,” Comey’s lawyers wrote.
In separate filings Thursday, Comey’s legal team also requested specific details about the conduct at the center of the criminal case, saying the terse indictment doesn’t even make clear what Comey is alleged to have done wrong. They also claimed that the answers he gave to “fundamentally ambiguous questions” at the Senate hearing in which he allegedly lied were “literally true” and that the case should therefore be dismissed.
The indictment accuses Comey of having misled the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 30, 2020, in response to questions from Republican Senator Ted Cruz about whether Comey had authorized a leak of news to the media. But Comey’s lawyers say the prosecution misrepresents his exchange with Cruz, attributing to Comey statements he did not make.
The defense team says the prosecution omits the context of Cruz’s question that made it clear that he was asking Comey whether he had authorized his deputy, Andrew McCabe, to serve as an anonymous source for the media. Lawyers say the indictment misleadingly suggests that Cruz’s questioning concerned another person, a Columbia University law professor and Comey friend named Daniel Richman. An earlier FBI investigation into whether Comey had disclosed classified information through Richman concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge either man.
“Senator Cruz’s questions are fundamentally ambiguous because people of ordinary intellect would not be expected to understand that he intended to ask a broad question about Mr. Comey’s interactions with anyone at the FBI – including Daniel Richman – during a discussion focused on Mr. McCabe,” Comey’s lawyers wrote. “In contrast, a reasonable person would have easily understood that Senator Cruz was only asking whether Mr. Comey had specifically authorized Mr. McCabe to be an anonymous source in news reporting.”