{"id":136143,"date":"2025-10-31T11:47:58","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/10\/31\/comey-files-motions-to-dismiss-for-maam-do-you-even-law\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T11:47:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:47:58","slug":"comey-files-motions-to-dismiss-for-maam-do-you-even-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/10\/31\/comey-files-motions-to-dismiss-for-maam-do-you-even-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Comey Files Motions To Dismiss For MA\u2019AM DO YOU EVEN LAW?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Getting disqualified as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia is the best thing that could happen to Lindsey Halligan. The Florida insurance lawyer currently LARP-ing as a federal prosecutor was installed on a statutory basis that\u2019s been rejected<\/a> by three courts already. A fourth court is now considering motions to boot her filed by former FBI director Jim Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. No other lawyer at EDVA would touch the Comey and James cases, Halligan presented them herself to the grand jury, and her name is the only one on the indictments. So if she\u2019s out, then those prosecutions are likely DOA.<\/p>\n

That would be a kindness, if only because it would spare Halligan the ignominy of watching the humiliating implosion of both high-profile cases. <\/p>\n

Three motions filed yesterday by Comey\u2019s legal team illustrate the fatal flaw in the prosecution. The barebones indictment<\/a> \u2014 just a page and a half stating in conclusory fashion that Comey lied to Congress back in 2020 \u2014 is so vague that it could apply to two alternate theories of the case. Was Halligan saying that Comey lied about authorizing his former deputy Andrew McCabe to speak to the Wall Street Journal? Or was she suggesting that he lied about dispatching his friend and lawyer Daniel Richman, to speak to the New York Times?<\/p>\n

Comey\u2019s lawyer Pat Fitzgerald said that he himself only learned that \u201cPERSON 3\u201d was Richman the day before the arraignment. <\/p>\n

Neither theory of the case makes much sense, but the Richman plot seems almost comically ridiculous, since the testimony in question very clearly pertained to McCabe only.<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The first motion<\/a> requests a bill of particulars laying out specifically how Halligan thinks this crime went down. When and how did this authorization take place? What did Comey order Richman to leak? What was the Senate inquiry he \u201ccorruptly\u201d influenced? Which statement in Comey\u2019s testimony was false? Inquiring minds \u2014 and Jim Comey \u2014 want to know!<\/p>\n

The second motion<\/a> requests the disclosure of the grand jury transcripts for all the reasons<\/em>: Halligan was installed as US Attorney after the president pushed out her predecessor, a career prosecutor, for refusing to indict Comey and James. Four days later, in her very first appearance before a grand jury, she secured the instant indictment \u2014 after first getting no-billed, and then holding the jurors over until almost 7 p.m. No line attorneys were willing to put their names on the indictment, and the only lawyers willing to associate themselves with the prosecution had to be imported from North Carolina. The theory of the case is so vague that it suggests an inexperienced prosecutor (who may or may not have been illegally appointed) might have fudged the details. And, on top of all that, Comey says that an FBI investigator who testified before the grand jury was likely tainted by exposure to privileged materials. Whoopsie doodle!<\/em><\/p>\n

The third filing was a Bronston<\/em> motion<\/a> to dismiss based on the literal truth of Comey\u2019s answers to Ted Cruz\u2019s ambiguous questions. During the exchange, the senator fired off a series of accusations, characterizing prior statements by Comey and McCabe as diametrically opposed, and scarcely providing room for Comey to reply. <\/p>\n

\n

CRUZ: Now, as you know, Mr. McCabe, who works for you, has publicly\u00a0and\u00a0repeatedly stated that he leaked information to the Wall Street Journal\u00a0and\u00a0that you were directly aware of it\u00a0and\u00a0that you directly\u00a0authorized\u00a0it. Now, what Mr. McCabe is saying\u00a0and\u00a0what you testified to this committee cannot both be true. One or the other is false. Who\u2019s telling the truth?\u00a0<\/p>\n

COMEY: I can only speak to my testimony. I stand by the testimony you summarized that I gave in May of 2017.<\/p>\n

CRUZ: So your testimony is you\u2019ve never\u00a0authorized\u00a0anyone to leak?\u00a0And\u00a0Mr. McCabe, if he says contrary, is not telling the truth, is that correct?<\/p>\n

COMEY: Again, I\u2019m not going to characterize\u00a0Andy\u2019s testimony, but mine is the same today.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As the motion points out, this hectoring was not a careful deposition designed to elicit clear responses, but rather an exercise of political rhetoric. And saying \u201cI stand by my testimony\u201d is basically a non-response to an inchoate shouting. It is literally true<\/em>, and the lack of context in the indictment, which claims that he \u201cfalsely stat[ed] to a U.S. Senator during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that he, JAMES B. COMEY JR., had not \u2018authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports\u2019 regarding an FBI investigation,\u201d strongly suggests that Halligan painted an incomplete picture for the jurors.<\/p>\n

If Comey does manage to get his hands on those grand jury transcripts, he\u2019ll obviously be supplementing the Bronston<\/em> motion. But it likely won\u2019t come to that, thanks to Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, the senior judge from South Carolina designated to hear the disqualification motion. If she agrees with courts in New Jersey, Nevada, and California that 28 USC \u00a7 546 permits the president one, and only one<\/em>, 120-day interim appointment, then Halligan\u2019s installation was ultra vires<\/em> and prosecutions she alone secured are likely a nullity. Judge Currie has also ordered<\/a> Halligan to turn over \u201call documents relating to the indictment signer\u2019s participation in the grand jury proceedings, along with complete grand jury transcripts\u201d so that she may \u201cdetermine the extent of the indictment signer\u2019s involvement in the grand jury proceedings.\u201d It should make for fascinating reading.<\/p>\n

US v. Comey<\/a> [Docket via Court Listener]<\/p>\n

\n

Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0substack<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The post Comey Files Motions To Dismiss For MA\u2019AM DO YOU EVEN LAW?<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJames Comey (Photo by Eric Thayer\/Getty Images)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Getting disqualified as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia is the best thing that could happen to Lindsey Halligan. The Florida insurance lawyer currently LARP-ing as a federal prosecutor was installed on a statutory basis that\u2019s been rejected<\/a> by three courts already. A fourth court is now considering motions to boot her filed by former FBI director Jim Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. No other lawyer at EDVA would touch the Comey and James cases, Halligan presented them herself to the grand jury, and her name is the only one on the indictments. So if she\u2019s out, then those prosecutions are likely DOA.<\/p>\n

That would be a kindness, if only because it would spare Halligan the ignominy of watching the humiliating implosion of both high-profile cases. <\/p>\n

Three motions filed yesterday by Comey\u2019s legal team illustrate the fatal flaw in the prosecution. The barebones indictment<\/a> \u2014 just a page and a half stating in conclusory fashion that Comey lied to Congress back in 2020 \u2014 is so vague that it could apply to two alternate theories of the case. Was Halligan saying that Comey lied about authorizing his former deputy Andrew McCabe to speak to the Wall Street Journal? Or was she suggesting that he lied about dispatching his friend and lawyer Daniel Richman, to speak to the New York Times?<\/p>\n

Comey\u2019s lawyer Pat Fitzgerald said that he himself only learned that \u201cPERSON 3\u201d was Richman the day before the arraignment. <\/p>\n

Neither theory of the case makes much sense, but the Richman plot seems almost comically ridiculous, since the testimony in question very clearly pertained to McCabe only.<\/p>\n