The federal judge considering whether Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully installed by the Trump administration had ordered the Department of Justice to provide the “complete grand jury transcripts” in James Comey’s case for the judge to review. The DOJ failed to do so, and now it has a deadline of 5 p.m. Wednesday to comply.
On Oct. 28, U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie issued an order that said she needs to “determine the extent of the indictment signer’s involvement in the grand jury proceedings.” Halligan, a former personal lawyer for President Donald Trump who lacks prior prosecutorial experience, presented the Comey case to the grand jury herself, over the objection of career prosecutors.
Currie had ordered that by Monday, Nov. 3, the DOJ was to provide her with “all documents relating to the indictment signer’s participation in the grand jury proceedings, along with complete grand jury transcripts.”
But on Tuesday, Currie issued a new order that said the material she received “fails to include remarks made by the indictment signer both before and after the testimony of the sole witness, which remarks were referenced by the indictment signer during the witness’s testimony.” The judge gave the government until Wednesday to comply.
Comey was indicted in the Eastern District of Virginia, where Halligan purports to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office after the previous head was forced out for refusing to prosecute Trump’s political opponents. Currie, a Bill Clinton appointee, is a South Carolina federal judge, but she is handling this issue because it requires an out-of-district judge to oversee. (Federal district judges are potentially involved in the appointment of a replacement U.S. attorney for their district when there is a vacancy.)
Currie is simultaneously overseeing the challenge against Halligan’s appointment brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, another of Trump’s political opponents. Trump demanded her prosecution, and it was secured by Halligan in Virginia. Both Comey and James have pleaded not guilty and are pressing several motions to dismiss their indictments on top of their argument that Halligan was unlawfully appointed. Lawyers temporarily installed by the Trump administration to lead U.S. attorney’s offices across the country have had their tenures deemed unlawful by federal judges. Currie may well deem Halligan’s appointment unlawful, too, but she has yet to rule. The judge had also ordered the government to provide her with grand jury information for James’ proceedings, but as of the time she issued the order for more information in Comey’s case, she hadn’t issued a similar order in James’ case. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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