Comey seeks to have indictment dismissed over DOJ’s handling of case

Amna Nawaz:

Welcome to the "News Hour."

President Trump is expected to sign a bill requiring the Justice Department to release its files on the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The Senate forwarded the measure to the White House today, only days after Mr. Trump withdrew his opposition.

Geoff Bennett:

Attorney General Pam Bondi today sidestepped questions about releasing the documents, saying only that she would follow the law.

Pam Bondi, U.S. Attorney General:

We will continue to follow the law with maximum transparency while protecting victims.

Geoff Bennett:

In more fallout related to the Epstein case, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers resigned from the board of directors at OpenAI days after Congress released documents that showed Summers shared a close relationship with Epstein.

The DOJ, meantime, is facing more scrutiny over the handling of its case against former FBI Director James Comey. I spoke earlier about both developments with Josh Gerstein, senior legal affairs reporter for Politico.

Josh Gerstein, welcome back to the "News Hour."

Josh Gerstein, Politico:

Good to be with you.

Geoff Bennett:

So to refresh memories, James Comey is accused of lying during a 2020 congressional hearing about whether he authorized leaks to the press. He has pleaded not guilty.

But, today, Lindsey Halligan, President Trump's handpicked U.S. attorney, admitted the full grand jury didn't see the final indictment handed up against James Comey. Tell us more about that.

Josh Gerstein:

Right.

Well, this was something of a surprise turn during the hearing. We expected it to focus primarily on whether this was a vindictive, selective prosecution case against Comey brought at President Trump's insistence. But at a certain point, it turned sharply, and the judge became very focused on this issue of whether the final indictment of Comey, which was a two-count indictment, instead of the three counts that Halligan originally proposed, ever went before the full grand jury.

It sounds like it was sort of modified after the grand jury voted on the first indictment and then prepared in Halligan's office and taken directly to the judge by the foreperson of the grand jury without that paper ever traveling into the grand jury room.

Geoff Bennett:

Has something like that ever happened before?

Josh Gerstein:

There have sometimes been cases where prosecutors modify an indictment or retype an indictment after it is handed up. It's not a common thing. Sometimes, the judge will request a permission to make sort of clerical or technical adjustments to the indictment.

But there's no indication that that happened here. And the signals seem to be that this might be the result of inexperience on Halligan's part, since he's never prosecuted a case before, and, frankly, because the prospect of a federal grand jury turning down even part of an indictment is a very, very rare event.

Geoff Bennett:

Is this enough to get the Comey case dismissed?

Josh Gerstein:

So the judge didn't really say that, although he did ask three or four times about this, saying it was important to him to be sort of crystal clear on whether that final indictment paper had gone before the full grand jury.

So he seemed to be heading in that direction. He told both sides he wanted them to file legal briefs on this issue or addressing this question over the course of this week. And it sounds like he may well consider throwing the case out on that basis, even though this is not a motion that the defense has formally put in front of him, at least not yet.

Geoff Bennett:

Let's shift our focus now to the Epstein files. The measure that Congress passed, as you know, requires the Justice Department to release the additional files, all the files, within 30 days.

Are we expecting the DOJ to comply with that?

Josh Gerstein:

If all means each and every one of the files, Geoff, I don't think DOJ is going to comply with that. Certainly, the law does allow for victim information to be withheld. But I think the key question here is, the law also has a provision that says materials that could impact an ongoing investigation don't need to be released.

And we already heard from Attorney General Pam Bondi that she considers the investigation that President Trump ordered up just a few days ago, saying he wanted high-profile Democrats like Bill Clinton investigated for their contacts with Epstein, she's assigned that to the federal prosecutor in Manhattan.

And she described that today as an ongoing probe. That limits the information the Justice Department can release. And so I wouldn't be at all surprised if that is used as a mechanism to hold back some of the files at that 30-day deadline.

What's curious about that, of course, is that doesn't talk about holding back any materials that pertain to Trump, because Trump naturally did not encourage an investigation of himself. And so it would be a strange result here if any Trump-related information in the files becomes public and those about his perceived Democratic enemies stays under wraps.

Geoff Bennett:

And we should say there's no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Clinton or Trump in connection to their previous ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Stepping back, though, what do the Comey case and the fight over these Epstein files tell us about how the Justice Department is operating under this administration?

Josh Gerstein:

Well, it tells us just how heavily the president's role here in the Justice Department is being felt and being carried out. I mean, in both cases, we see the president's instructions being treated as essentially marching orders for prosecutors.

In court today, the prosecutors defending the Comey case tried to suggest that it was not brought at the president's instruction. But it was quite clear in the message that the president sent just a couple of days before the actual indictment that he wanted to see Comey charged.

And so it's sort of a cloud that's hanging over almost everything the Justice Department does in high-profile cases now, whether this is something that they have just decided on their own to pursue or whether they're carrying out the president's orders.

And if the latter is the case, certainly, judges and magistrates across the country are going to take a much stricter view of these cases and I think probably have a jaundiced eye as to whether they should go forward.

Geoff Bennett:

Josh Gerstein, senior legal affairs reporter for Politico.

Josh, our thanks to you, as always.

Josh Gerstein:

Thank you.