James Comey’s latest courtroom hearing on Wednesday had been expected to focus on his motion for vindictive prosecution until a revelation took it for an unexpected hearing.
Under sharp questioning by U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanov, Donald Trump’s former lawyer turned first-time prosecutor Lindsey Halligan admitted that the full grand jury never saw the document that became Comey’s indictment.
Nachmanov had been pressing Halligan to account for what happened between 4:28 p.m. and 6:40 p.m. on Sept. 25, the more than two-hour gap in the grand jury record on the day of Comey’s indictment. Halligan insisted in a declaration that the grand jury had been privately deliberating during that time without any interaction with a government official, but the grand jury returned two indictments.
In the first, the foreperson attested that the grand jury could not concur on a three-count indictment, and a handwritten notation indicated that the no-bill was on “Count 1 only.” A foreperson signed a revised indictment that struck the first count but left the other two in place, but most of the other grand jury panelists had gone home by then, Halligan conceded.
Only the foreperson and another grand juror remained.
As a result, the ex-FBI director’s attorney Michael Dreeben said: “There is no indictment that Mr. Comey is facing.”
Judge Nachmanov sought more briefing on whether that will constitute a separate and unexpected basis to dismiss Comey’s indictment.
The video above aired immediately after Comey’s hearing. Stay tuned for deeper reporting into what happened inside the courtroom, but a separate recording of my conversation with former federal prosecutor , who watched the bombshell revelation next to me in the courthouse.
Note: The video encountered audio problems that resolved later in the recording.
