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Posted
11 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

I do.  I care deeply.  IDGAF about comey, but I really need this whole sham to be shoved up dotard's asshole.

Meh. Since the rule of law is already dead, this fuckstick might as well rot in jail. 

Posted
18 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Meh. Since the rule of law is already dead, this fuckstick might as well rot in jail. 

It is but it isn't.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/31/trump-administration-mandatory-detention-deportation-00632086

https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-litigation-legal-challenges-trump-administration/

It's the only thing currently standing between Trump and a complete walkover.

Posted

Back on topic some things have become more clear.

Remember the indictment alleges that Comey lied about "authorizing" someone "at the FBI" to "leak anonymously."

There was some question about who that someone could be.  One speculation was Chris Wray, who apparently did leak anonymously, but even according to his testimony to Congress and elsewhere, did so without Comey's prior knowledge or approval.

The other person was Daniel Richman, a professor at Columbia, with whom Comey communicated about various things as a friend and consiglieri.  And Richman was in fairly constant contact with the press, but rarely, if ever, anonymously.

And Richman was not an FBI employee, fairly obviously.  

He was, however, a "special employee" uncompensated consultant for the FBI.  But the terms of his "employment" are murky and it appears that he was not actually so employed in the relevant timeframe.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/more-trouble-for-the-comey-indictment

Another hole in the government's already flimsy case.

The most glaring problem with the case is that what Comey said to Congress, within the limitations period, was "I stand by my earlier testimony."  And that is a statement that is not really capable of being proven false.  Certainly not by proving 2017 testimony false.

Posted
On 11/8/2025 at 8:58 AM, TwiceHorn said:

Back on topic some things have become more clear.

Remember the indictment alleges that Comey lied about "authorizing" someone "at the FBI" to "leak anonymously."

There was some question about who that someone could be.  One speculation was Chris Wray, who apparently did leak anonymously, but even according to his testimony to Congress and elsewhere, did so without Comey's prior knowledge or approval.

The other person was Daniel Richman, a professor at Columbia, with whom Comey communicated about various things as a friend and consiglieri.  And Richman was in fairly constant contact with the press, but rarely, if ever, anonymously.

And Richman was not an FBI employee, fairly obviously.  

He was, however, a "special employee" uncompensated consultant for the FBI.  But the terms of his "employment" are murky and it appears that he was not actually so employed in the relevant timeframe.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/more-trouble-for-the-comey-indictment

Another hole in the government's already flimsy case.

The most glaring problem with the case is that what Comey said to Congress, within the limitations period, was "I stand by my earlier testimony."  And that is a statement that is not really capable of being proven false.  Certainly not by proving 2017 testimony false.

Chris Wray wasn't with the FBI when Comey was in charge.

Posted
On 11/8/2025 at 8:58 AM, TwiceHorn said:

The most glaring problem with the case is that what Comey said to Congress, within the limitations period, was "I stand by my earlier testimony."  And that is a statement that is not really capable of being proven false.  Certainly not by proving 2017 testimony false.

How can one physically stand by something intangible? The Supreme Court will rule this is perjury per se. 

Posted (edited)

A couple of issues.  

First, the government got a search warrant for Daniel Richman's devices in 2020.  The search warrant was limited to a certain time period and the crimes under investigation were leaking and misuse of classified information.

What they took in the seizure exceeded the time period both before and after.  Also, with Richman being a lawyer, they agreed that Richman had the right to review for privileged material before the government, so that happened, but on a kind of casual basis.  Also, they permitted Columbia U, Richman's employer, to review for "academically privileged" material, also on a kind of casual basis.

At the time, however, Richman was one of Comey's retained lawyers and they didn't give Comey any opportunity to review and assert privilege.

They also seemed to have reviewed materials before and after the time limitations set forth in the warrant.  When the government exceeds the scope of a warrant, they need another warrant to review that evidence and here they didn't get one, but seem to have reviewed it anyway.  

Halligan appeared to make two material misstatements of the law to the grand jury, and also implied  or stated that the government had better evidence that it wasn't sharing with the grand jury.  That is redacted.

Also, it is known that the grand jury was originally provided with a three-count indictment and they no-billed one, true-billed the other two.   That then, is a "no-billed" indictment.

Halligan would have then needed to re-present a second indictment with only the two true-billed counts and at least in theory run through the evidence again.  Either that didn't happen and the foreperson was presented with a different indictment to just sign off on, or the government didn' t produce the transcript of the second indictment presentation, or both.

Just a shit show of stupidity.  Trumpco is so bad at law.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted
4 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

They are criminal dumbasses that don’t know how to do anything right. 

Its not even so much that they don't know how to do anything right, they just don't fucking care to do anything right. "right" to them is whatever advances their fucktarded MAGA agenda, by any means necessary. 

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Posted

Also, the issue of the legality of Halligan's appointment in Comey's and Letitia James' cases has been referred to another judge, in South Carolina.

That hearing took place last week and the judge expressed quite a bit of skepticism.

One kind of hilarious thing is that the government is having to contradict Aileen Cannon's analysis of why Jack Smith's appointment was invalid.  Her ruling is not precedent and is not binding on any other court and, it is a different situation in many respects, but the government is basically having to argue that Pam Bondi has authority to appoint counsel that Merrick Garland lacked, because reasons.

 

 

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Posted

From that Opinion:

Quote

The government presented this case to the grand jury on September 25, 2025.  ECF 1.  The same day, prior to the grand jury presentment, Agent-2 alerted the lead case agent (hereinafter referred to as Agent-3) and an attorney with the FBI’s Office of General Counsel that “evidence obtained in the Government’s investigation of James Comey may constitute attorney-client privileged or attorney-client confidential information.  It is also possible that [the agents] may have obtained evidence that constitutes attorney work-product information.”8  ECF 89-5.  Agent-2 gave Agent-3 and the FBI attorney “a limited overview of the [privileged] communications.”  ECF 1722.9  Agent-3, rather than remove himself from the investigative team until the taint issue was resolved, proceeded into the grand jury undeterred and testified in support of the pending indictment.  ECF 179.  In fact, Agent-3 was the only witness to testify before the grand jury in support of the pending indictment.  Id. The government’s decision to allow an agent who was exposed to potentially privileged information to testify before a grand jury is highly irregular and a radical departure from past DOJ practice.  

Sadly, highly irregular and radical departure from norms is the new norm. 

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Posted
21 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Magistrate judge finds search warrant and grand jury shenanigans highly likely.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.582136/gov.uscourts.vaed.582136.191.0.pdf

Another kind of amusing thing.  In the government's response to the motion to dismiss for selective/vindictive prosecution, they spun a factual narrative of Comey's communications with Richman and Richman' communications with the press.  But it ignored the timing of the communications, that is when Richman was (and was not) a "special employee" of the FBI, and the fact that Richman's communications with the press were never anonymous and never reported as such.

The magistrate judge's recitation of the facts strongly contradicts that.  It doesn't really matter who is right on that (the magistrate is), but that it can be interpreted both ways strongly indicates reasonable doubt.

 

Posted (edited)

Fun piece from Wittes/Lawfare on this.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-situation--malevolence--incompetence--and-the-strange-case-of-lindsey-halligan

Oh.

ETA:  Also like Wittes' conclusion here.

All of this evil incompetence would be comical, except for the real world effects—incompetent evil being funny only in the movies.

Because what is the point of all this abuse and rake-stomping? It is all intended to deploy the legal system to establish a falsehood, which is that James Comey lied to Congress eight years ago and then doubled down on that lie, and thus obstructed a congressional investigation, five years ago.

And why is it important for the United States federal government to establish this lie as official truth? Because if Comey is not a liar, then a lot of things are true that aren’t allowed to be true—like, for example, that Donald Trump had, and may still have, an untoward relationship with Russia and its president that warranted serious investigation in 2017 and still warrants scrutiny today, that the Russia investigation and its progeny were not a witch hunt, that Trump has tried to rig the justice system from the earliest days of his presidency, and that an entire political movement has eagerly lied to itself, and to the public, to deny these reality. And that it has been doing so—however incompetently and malevolently—for eight years and counting. 

Just like Lindsey Halligan.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted
2 minutes ago, Tuco said:

I'm starting to think it's a risky strategy to select federal prosecutors based on cup size. 

Especially if the cup size derives from polymeric substances.

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Posted
2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Fun piece from Wittes/Lawfare on this.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-situation--malevolence--incompetence--and-the-strange-case-of-lindsey-halligan

Oh.

ETA:  Also like Wittes' conclusion here.

All of this evil incompetence would be comical, except for the real world effects—incompetent evil being funny only in the movies.

Because what is the point of all this abuse and rake-stomping? It is all intended to deploy the legal system to establish a falsehood, which is that James Comey lied to Congress eight years ago and then doubled down on that lie, and thus obstructed a congressional investigation, five years ago.

And why is it important for the United States federal government to establish this lie as official truth? Because if Comey is not a liar, then a lot of things are true that aren’t allowed to be true—like, for example, that Donald Trump had, and may still have, an untoward relationship with Russia and its president that warranted serious investigation in 2017 and still warrants scrutiny today, that the Russia investigation and its progeny were not a witch hunt, that Trump has tried to rig the justice system from the earliest days of his presidency, and that an entire political movement has eagerly lied to itself, and to the public, to deny these reality. And that it has been doing so—however incompetently and malevolently—for eight years and counting. 

Just like Lindsey Halligan.

You know, I don't know whether to be encouraged or discouraged.  It is encouraging that Trump (Stephen Miller) is slowly failing at just about everything he is trying to do. The foundation of American democracy is holding.  That should be encouraging.  Except, a plurality of American voters wanted this and they want Trump (Stephen Miller) to succeed.  That is discouraging.

I had another thought - American democracy has to expose itself to risk in order to maintain itself.  It's like the tradeoff between security and freedom.  How do we put restrictions on the president so that this kind of shit doesn't happen, while still allowing him or her to act as necessary for the benefit of the country?  There are benefits to a strong executive when they are a good faith actor.  Not so much when you have a bad faith actor who is literally constrained by nothing.

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Posted
5 minutes ago, Ojo Rojo said:

You know, I don't know whether to be encouraged or discouraged.  It is encouraging that Trump (Stephen Miller) is slowly failing at just about everything he is trying to do. The foundation of American democracy is holding.  That should be encouraging.  Except, a plurality of American voters wanted this and they want Trump (Stephen Miller) to succeed.  That is discouraging.

I had another thought - American democracy has to expose itself to risk in order to maintain itself.  It's like the tradeoff between security and freedom.  How do we put restrictions on the president so that this kind of shit doesn't happen, while still allowing him or her to act as necessary for the benefit of the country?  There are benefits to a strong executive when they are a good faith actor.  Not so much when you have a bad faith actor who is literally constrained by nothing.

It's not on this thread, but one of the others regarding the effective dissolution of the United States Department of Justice.

It's infuriating and sad.

It has never been a perfect institution, by any stretch of the imagination, but what Trump and his cronies are doing is fucking disgusting.

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