Appearing U.S. Lawyer for the Jap District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan just isn’t having a very good time.
Certain, indicting individuals as a result of President Donald Trump mentioned so was most likely a little bit of a rush, however now she’s caught with two high-profile circumstances the place the one assist she has is prosecutors borrowed from different districts, since nobody in her workplace would comply with deal with these travesties.
Whereas Halligan is working these circumstances on a shoestring, former FBI Director James Comey goes HAM and submitting movement after movement to do away with each Halligan and the indictment she secured in opposition to him.
He’s assembled a large workforce of high-powered, skilled attorneys, and they’re completely burying Halligan in a flurry of motions —a superb technique in opposition to an inexperienced prosecutor. Now, Halligan has to answer all of those, and in the meantime, time marches on. Each Comey’s case and Halligan’s prosecution of New York Lawyer Common Letitia James are on the rocket docket, so Halligan has to concurrently put together for 2 large trials scheduled just some weeks aside in January.
Former FBI Director James Comey
Comey had already filed two earlier motions to dismiss, one based mostly on Halligan being illegally appointed and one alleging vindictive and selective prosecution. This week, he added three extra.
First, he filed a movement to drive the federal government to reveal the grand jury proceedings. Usually, grand juries are entitled to a “presumption of regularity,” which means the actions of the grand jury are presumed to be affordable. But when a defendant can level to vital irregularities, they will get entry to the grand jury supplies.
Right here, Comey factors to 2 vital irregularities. First, it seems there could have been a tainted witness—an FBI agent who could have had entry to privileged materials between Comey and his attorneys, which might be lined by the attorney-client privilege. If the agent offered the grand jury with attorney-client data in an effort to buttress the indictment in opposition to Comey, that’s a giant drawback.
Moreover, Comey alleges that Halligan stored the grand jury effectively into the night as an alternative of sending them house after they refused to indict Comey on three counts. She then offered the two-count indictment and stored the jury till almost 7 PM. Comey desires entry to these proceedings to see if Halligan mainly advised the jury they couldn’t depart till they indicted him.
That may sound fanciful and ridiculous in a standard case with a standard prosecutor—a long-shot criticism. However that is no regular case, and Halligan isn’t any regular prosecutor, so it’s not arduous to think about her considering it’s completely applicable to hammer a grand jury till she bought what she wished.
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He’s additionally filed a movement for a invoice of particulars. A defendant is meant to know the premise for the costs in opposition to them to allow them to put together for trial. However the indictment Halligan offered has actually no details about the factual foundation for charging Comey. So, Comey is asking for all of it, and let’s face it: We all know that no matter Halligan has as materials supporting her fact-free indictment might be fairly sparse.
If that wasn’t sufficient, Comey additionally filed a movement to dismiss the indictment “based on fundamental ambiguity and literal truth.” That’s a mouthful, however what it’s about is Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s mangled, multi-part inquiries to Comey, creating confusion as to what, precisely, he was asking Comey about. The “literal truth” half is exactly what it seems like—that Comey says he was actually truthful when responding to Cruz. In fact, if Comey was truthful, the entire indictment falls aside.
In the meantime, within the Letitia James case …
New York Lawyer Common Letitia James
Halligan charged James with fraud over mendacity to her financial institution to get a greater mortgage on a second house, however then renting it out in violation of the “Second Home Rider” contract. However there’s language in her contract that claims she will use the house “including short-term rentals.” The truth is, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac say {that a} second house rider means the property “may be rented out on a short-term basis.”
James’ grand-niece lives within the house and testified to a distinct grand jury convened by Halligan that she had lived there for a few years with out paying hire. However then Halligan didn’t put the grand-niece earlier than the grand jury that finally indicted James. That appears quite a bit like Halligan withheld materials—that would have proven James’s innocence—from the grand jury that finally indicted James.
Halligan is overmatched and, truthfully, appears to assume her job ended after she secured indictments. Though she’s gotten Justice Division attorneys from different jurisdictions to assist out, that help can’t treatment the deficiencies in her indictments.
These skilled protection attorneys should not going to let up, and by now, Halligan has to really feel like a mouse being batted round in a cat’s claws.
How lengthy can we give her earlier than she quits? In fact, if both of those indictments will get dismissed, Halligan could be purged by the identical individuals who put in her within the job.
Maybe she’ll return to her earlier job within the administration, the place she bought to singlehandedly take away any materials from the Smithsonian museums that made white individuals unhappy, like displays about slavery.
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She’s not certified for that both, after all. But it surely’s bought to be simpler than her present thankless gig.
