Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Shocking and unheard of Judge left stunned at Lindsey Halligans grand jury misconduct

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Shocking and unheard of Judge left stunned at Lindsey Halligans grand jury misconduct · DEEP INSIGHT

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  Speaker 1: But started as a hearing in court this morning over
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  Speaker 1: whether the Justice Department's targeting a former director of the FBI,
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  Speaker 1: Jim Comey, is indeed a vindictive prosecution, ended with the
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  Speaker 1: government the Trump administration admitting a potentially huge error, a
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  Speaker 1: procedural error that could bring about the entire collapse of
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  Speaker 1: this case Donald Trump has longed for for nearly a decade.
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's hand picked US Attorney for the Eastern District
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  Speaker 1: of Virginia, Lindsay Halligan, who has no prosecutorial experience, at
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  Speaker 1: least she didn't prior to bringing charges or trying to
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  Speaker 1: bring charges against the former FBI director, admitted that the
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  Speaker 1: grand jury jurors the full grand jury never saw the
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  Speaker 1: indictment that was returned against Jim Comey. The government revealed
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  Speaker 1: that Halligan presented the original three count indictment, but the
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  Speaker 1: grand jury rejected one of the counts. Halligan then drafted
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  Speaker 1: a new two count indictment, but did not present it
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  Speaker 1: to the full grand jury. Only the four person and
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  Speaker 1: one other grand juror even saw it, and that is
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  Speaker 1: the indictment that the judge signed. So the charges that
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  Speaker 1: are currently on the court docket were never reviewed by
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  Speaker 1: the full grand jury, meaning that the full grand jury
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  Speaker 1: didn't indicte Jim Coming didn't sign off on that. It's
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  Speaker 1: a revelation so shocking and unheard of in our justice
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  Speaker 1: system that, according to reporters in the room, the judge
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  Speaker 1: himself was stunned in silence. The court room was so quiet,
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  Speaker 1: according to people in the room, you could hear a
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  Speaker 1: pin drop. At the conclusion of the hearing, the judge
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  Speaker 1: said he would not rule during the hearing then and there,
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  Speaker 1: claiming that the issues at hand are quote too weighty,
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  Speaker 1: but we just passed the five pm deadline. He gave
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  Speaker 1: the Justice Department to address and tried to explain this
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  Speaker 1: grand jury bombshell. This is the very kind of grand
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  Speaker 1: jury misconduct that a separate judge alluded to on Monday
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  Speaker 1: when he found genuine issues of misconduct writing this quote.
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  Speaker 1: The short time span between the moment the prosecutor learned
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  Speaker 1: that the grand jury rejected one count in the original
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  Speaker 1: indictment and the time the prosecutor appeared in court to
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  Speaker 1: return the second indictment could not have been sufficient to
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  Speaker 1: draft the second indictment, sign the second indictment, present it
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  Speaker 1: to the grand jury, provide legal instructions to the grand
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  Speaker 1: jury and give them an opportunity to deliberate and render
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  Speaker 1: a decision on the new indictment. If this procedure did
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  Speaker 1: not take place, then the court is in uncharted legal territory.
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  Speaker 1: That uncharted legal territories. Where we begin the hour with
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  Speaker 1: some of our favorite reporters and friends. Senior investigative reporter
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  Speaker 1: Caro Lening is here. She's the author of the new
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  Speaker 1: book Injustice, How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department.
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  Speaker 1: Also joining us, former Acting Assistant Attorney General for National
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  Speaker 1: Security the Justice Department, Mary McCourt is here, and political
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  Speaker 1: analysts and host of the Bulwark podcast Tim Miller is here.
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  Speaker 1: Tim Miller a newsmaker in his own right in this
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  Speaker 1: new cycle, which we'll get to later in the hour.
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  Speaker 1: Mary McCord talk to me like I'm not a lawyer,
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  Speaker 1: and explain to me why this is so catastrophic in
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  Speaker 1: terms of the case that the Trump Justice Department tried
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  Speaker 1: to bring one and to bring desperately wants to bring
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  Speaker 1: against himcoming.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I will start by saying, I don't know that
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  Speaker 2: this is as catastrophic as it might be, and I
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  Speaker 2: think there are facts that remain to be found. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: if it is the case that all of the grand
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  Speaker 2: jurors agreed on counts two and three but not count one,
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  Speaker 2: and the only thing that Miss Halligan or somebody in
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  Speaker 2: her office did was then create a new indictment with
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  Speaker 2: the verbatim counts two and three as count one and two.
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  Speaker 2: If the four person is able to testify, all twelve
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  Speaker 2: grandeurors agreed to those two counts, and if after maybe
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  Speaker 2: taking some evidence, which is what I would do if
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  Speaker 2: I were the judge, assured himself that all twelve grand
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  Speaker 2: jurors agreed to those two counts exactly as they were
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  Speaker 2: written and presented to the Grand Jury the first time.
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  Speaker 2: It could be that this is the kind of an
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  Speaker 2: irregularity that would not necessarily result and dismissal, or if
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  Speaker 2: it did, that by operation of a separate statute, the
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  Speaker 2: government could rebring in the future, And that separate statue
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  Speaker 2: actually says that when there's a dismissal for reasons that
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  Speaker 2: historically have involved irregularities procedural errors in the grand jury,
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  Speaker 2: that a government can rebring a case within six months
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  Speaker 2: to the grand jury, even if the statutal limitations has expired.
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  Speaker 2: Now let me caveat that there's also a real question
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  Speaker 2: here about whether there was misconduct in this whole process
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  Speaker 2: of getting this second indictment. And I think that's why
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  Speaker 2: one of the reasons why an evidentiary hearing is going
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  Speaker 2: to be clear, because there could be other reasons besides
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  Speaker 2: procedural heir that the court would say dismissal is warranted.
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  Speaker 2: And let's not forget that the court very well may
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  Speaker 2: decide to dismiss this case on the grounds that were
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  Speaker 2: being argued today originally before this sort of bombshell occurred,
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  Speaker 2: which is whether this prosecution is a violation of mister
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  Speaker 2: Comy's due process rights because it was a vindictive prosecution
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  Speaker 2: in violation of his First Amendment rights, and just because
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  Speaker 2: it was based on actual animis by the government in
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  Speaker 2: this case, the President of the United States as well
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  Speaker 2: as the prosecutor. That's a serious, serious motion. And as
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  Speaker 2: you've also indicated, there's the potential that the misconduct identified
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  Speaker 2: by the magistrate judge when he heard this case last
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  Speaker 2: week gone the question about the making grand jury transcripts
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  Speaker 2: available to mister Commey's defense counsel. He found, as you indicated,
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  Speaker 2: some significant evidence of misconduct, including Miss Halligan giving instructions
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  Speaker 2: to the grand jury that would suggest that it was
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  Speaker 2: mister Comy's burden at trial to explain himself, and which
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  Speaker 2: suggested that the government might have new and better evidence
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  Speaker 2: at trial, and those are things that Miss Hallikan can't do.
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  Speaker 2: So I would say, there are right now a pluthor
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  Speaker 2: of reasons that this indictment might be dismissed, but it
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  Speaker 2: may not be because of this procedural air we just
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  Speaker 2: have to see.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, let me come back to the procedural error and
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  Speaker 1: just help me square your measured reaction to what sounded
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  Speaker 1: like the magistrate judge and the judge today being absolutely
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  Speaker 1: dismayed by what was transpiring in their court rooms.
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  Speaker 2: So I think I mean and I'm dismayed by it too,
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  Speaker 2: because this literally, every single bit of this case from
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  Speaker 2: the very beginning, has shown why you don't put a
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  Speaker 2: person in the grand jury on their third or fourth
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  Speaker 2: day of the job with no training, no experience, no
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  Speaker 2: knowledge of what you're supposed to do in front of
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  Speaker 2: a grand jury, no knowledge of what you're supposed to
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  Speaker 2: instruct them to do, and no knowledge about how to
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  Speaker 2: actually if the grand jury has refused one count of
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  Speaker 2: your three ground counts. What you need to do to
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  Speaker 2: take that full indictment back to the grand jury, or
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  Speaker 2: not the full indictment, the indictment without that count back
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  Speaker 2: to the grand jury. That's why this has been such
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  Speaker 2: a debacle. Really from the beginning, she had no business
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  Speaker 2: being in front of that grand jury. But when you
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  Speaker 2: parse apart and you look back at what was filed
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  Speaker 2: by the grand jury, they filed in court a notice
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  Speaker 2: of non concurrence on and the four person at least
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  Speaker 2: alleged to be the four person. This is why I
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  Speaker 2: would take evidence wrote in there that the grand jury
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  Speaker 2: had only failed to concur in other words, failed to
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  Speaker 2: have more than twelve votes of grand jurors for count
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  Speaker 2: one only. She wrote in count one only, and it
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  Speaker 2: was a three count indictment, And that three count indictment
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  Speaker 2: was then attached as part of this notice to the
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  Speaker 2: court of the grand juror's failure to concur in all
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  Speaker 2: three counts. So when I looked at that today and
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  Speaker 2: then I saw what happened with then the two counts
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  Speaker 2: being retyped on a new indictment, and the four person
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  Speaker 2: who apparently at least based on the representations today and
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  Speaker 2: again I would take evidence on this if I were
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  Speaker 2: the judge, but based on the representations, and the four
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  Speaker 2: person then signed that because the four person had been
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  Speaker 2: present when the original vote was taken. That's why I think.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, you can say, and I heard, I heard,
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  Speaker 2: you know the opening that there's no valid indictment. I
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  Speaker 2: do think that second indictment was not valid, but the
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  Speaker 2: first one very well may be the one that the
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  Speaker 2: grandeurors returned except for count one. I've never had this
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  Speaker 2: experience because I've never had a grand jury no buil
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  Speaker 2: any count on any indictment that I asked them to return,
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  Speaker 2: so I haven't had to go through this before.