(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan filed new court documents Thursday confirming that a federal grand jury did vote to indict disgraced former FBI Director James Comey in September.
The filing came after the elitist media and Comey’s defense team latched onto Halligan’s comments suggesting that not all jurors had seen the final charging documents. This suggestion raised concerns about the indictment’s legal grounds.
But prosecutors clarified that the newly filed transcript “conclusively refutes” any claims that there was an error in the grand jury indictment and “establishes that the grand jury voted on — and true-billed — the two-count indictment.”
They added that any “assertion that the grand jury ‘never voted on the two-count indictment’ is contradicted by the official transcript,” as quoted by the New York Post.
The confusion began Wednesday when Halligan said the grand jury approved two counts, yet only the foreperson and one additional juror saw the final charging document in September.
Comey’s defense attorney Michael Dreeben immediately seized on the comment to demand the presiding judge, Michael Nachmanoff, dismissed the case.
Similarly, the legacy media piled on, using Dreeben’s claims to question the indictment’s legitimacy and Halligan’s competence.
In response, Nachmanoff ordered federal prosecutors to clarify the matter later that evening.
“Let me be clear that the second indictment, the operative indictment in this case that Mr. Comey faces, is a document that was never shown to the entire grand jury or presented in the grand jury room; is that correct?” Nachmanoff asked Wednesday.
Halligan’s top deputy, Tyler Lemons, replied at the time: “Standing here in front of you, Your Honor, yes, that is my understanding.”
Comey faces charges of making false statements to Congress and obstruction of a congressional proceeding.
The case centers on Comey’s 2020 congressional testimony claiming that he had not “authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports” about the 2016 Hillary Clinton probe.
That claim was at odds with declassified emails exposing Comey communicated with FBI officials and his friend Daniel Richman about media leaks.
