The insurance lawyer installed by Donald Trump as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia has done the one job she was put there to do – secure an indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.
Lindsey Halligan, who has prosecuted as many federal cases as you have, was somehow able to convince a grand jury in Virginia to return indictments on one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice against Comey, who is the reason Trump was ever president in the first place – remember his decision 10 days before the 2016 election to publicly reopen the matter involving Hillary Clinton’s emails?
Yeah.
The alleged crimes that are the focus of the indictments handed down on Thursday involve Comey standing by testimony he offered in 2017 that he had never authorized leaks by anonymous sources of material about FBI investigations into Clinton and Trump when he testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 30, 2020.
The five-year statute of limitations on that testimony was set to expire next week; that’s why Trump fired Erik Siebert, a VMI and University of Richmond Law alum, last week, because Siebert looked at the facts and decided that there was no there there.
ICYMI
- Trump dumps U.S. Attorney who refuses to prosecute Letitia James
- VMI alum Erik S. Siebert named interim U.S. Attorney for Eastern District of Virginia
Trump has had a hard-on for Comey since the first Trump administration, because Comey refused to end the investigation of links between the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russian operatives.
He made it clear in a social-media post addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi that the Justice Department needed to find something to charge Comey with.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” Trump wrote.
Trump was impeached in 2020 over his effort to use $400 million in U.S. military aid to Ukraine to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to launch a meritless investigation of Joe Biden; the 2021 impeachment involved Trump’s effort to lead a coup to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The second impeachment actually saw the U.S. Senate split 57-43 in favor of convicting Trump, but that majority fell short of the 67 votes needed to convict.
The indictments referenced by Trump included state felony fraud charges in New York, with a jury there convicting him on 34 counts in 2024.
Trump was never sentenced in that case.
“OVER NOTHING” – not exactly.
ICYMI
- Whistleblower complaint reveals Trump effort to pressure Ukraine
- Second Trump impeachment falls short of two-thirds majority needed to convict
- Manhattan jury finds former president Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts
- Trump dumps U.S. Attorney who refuses to prosecute Letitia James
This effort to “get” Comey – and Letitia James, the New York attorney general who secured a $500 million judgment against Trump in a civil fraud case decided in 2024, is next – is an obvious effort to retribution.
“Trump said he’d go after him, then fired a superb, ethical prosecutor when he refused to bring frivolous charges against those whom Trump perceived to be his enemies,” U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said in a statement released Thursday evening. “Now he has installed yet another one of his personal lawyers as the interim U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia – this one a Florida insurance lawyer with no prosecutorial experience and no connection to Virginia – to do his bidding. The rule of law must prevail.”
“Donald Trump has made clear that he intends to turn our justice system into a weapon for punishing and silencing his critics,” said U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who added, in his statement on the indictments:
“This kind of interference is a dangerous abuse of power,” Warner said. “Our system depends on prosecutors making decisions based on evidence and the law, not on the personal grudges of a politician determined to settle scores. By ousting a respected, independent prosecutor and replacing him with a partisan loyalist, Trump is undermining one of the most important U.S. Attorney’s offices in the country and eroding the rule of law itself.”
One more statement on this to share: from Don Beyer, a congressman from Northern Virginia:
“These phony charges demanded by Trump as an act of vengeance are a direct assault on the rule of law in the United States, and an act of staggering corruption. Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in American history, and it isn’t close,” Beyer said.
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Chris Graham
