“While it’s understandable that both James Comey and Letitia James have every right – and reason – to want their cases dismissed quickly and decisively, is there remaining value to the American public if these cases were allowed to move forward? In other words, notwithstanding the apparent blunders (or intentional deceit) on the part of Lindsey Halligan and her team in their apparent zeal to please the president, I’m fearful that if these cases disappear too quickly, the public may never fully learn how these indictments came to be, how the government intended to argue their case, and that we may never uncover potentially illegal activity on the part of DOJ that should be pursued to the full extent of the law.” – Brad
Hi Brad,
You submitted your question prior to James Comey and Letitia James getting their cases dismissed Monday on the grounds that their prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully installed by the Trump administration. But the dismissal makes your question even more important, so let’s explore it.
My short answer is: No. It wouldn’t be better for the cases against the former FBI director and New York attorney general to continue if there’s a reason to dismiss them now. Any value that might come from seeing the cases through to trial is outweighed by the dangers of letting legally unworthy cases go on for a second longer than they must.
As for what more we might learn if the cases were to continue, one hypothetical avenue is their unresolved motions to dismiss based on vindictive and selective prosecution. Discovery could reveal more about the government’s internal motivations and machinations behind the indictments. And if the cases were to go to trial, then those trials could prompt further revelations, either during the discovery process or at the trials themselves. Trials would also fully answer your question of how the government intended to argue the cases.
But it’s not a mystery how these cases came to be. President Donald Trump publicly demanded action against Comey and James. The previous head of the Eastern District of Virginia U.S. attorney’s office, Erik Siebert, was ousted for resisting carrying out Trump’s revenge. Halligan was installed for that purpose.
Though a judge deemed that installation illegal this week, Attorney General Pam Bondi said the government will appeal. And the indictments were dismissed “without prejudice,” so a lawful prosecutor theoretically could reindict them. If the government revives the cases – whether on appeal or with new indictments – that would still leave several pretrial hurdles for the Trump Justice Department to clear before getting to trial, where the DOJ would need to prove the cases beyond a reasonable doubt. Even if the government revives the cases, it could just be trading one mode of defeat for another.
As for what sort of defeat would be the most fitting for these misbegotten efforts, I’m tempted to pick vindictive prosecution among the pretrial dismissal options, because that plainly sums up what happened here. But if dismissal due to Halligan’s unlawful appointment winds up being the end of these cases, that could be fitting, too. While it might seem like a technicality, it’s a statement that these cases were illegal from the start – that they were never really cases at all.
It’s also tempting to want to see them go to trial, where citizens could have the final word. We’ve seen that dynamic play out in grand juries and courtrooms this year, with ordinary people rejecting the government’s evidence in political cases (including in the region overseen by Halligan, where a jury acquitted a man accused of soliciting violence against Trump).
After all, Comey initially responded to his indictment by saying: “Let’s have a trial.”
But while trials have an epic quality to them, they’re meant to accomplish a fairly technical task: to answer whether the government has proved the elements of a particular crime beyond a reasonable doubt. If Comey’s and James’ cases get to that point, then so be it. But if they don’t, then that could say something even more profound: Trump’s stalking horse could barely get out of the gate.
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