ALEXANDRIA, VA—This morning’s hearing on James Comey’s motion to dismiss for vindictive and selective prosecution was largely overshadowed by the revelation that the indictment may not be valid because it was botched by interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan. You can read my initial report from court here.
It would be an epic way for the weaponized prosecution of Comey to end: the Trump loyalist with no prosecutorial experience so badly mishandling the basic nuts and bolts of grand jury practice that no indictment ever attached to Comey.
But a botched indictment only indirectly gets at the heart of the bad faith and ill motive that is driving the Comey prosecution, so let’s run through some of the highlights of the nearly hour-long argument that preceded U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff pressing prosecutors for answers on their mishandling of the grand jury. Instead of recounting the arguments from both sides — former deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben for Comey and Nathaniel Lemons for the government — I want to zoom in on what most interested the judge and where his questions were most focused.
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