Lindsey Halligan, the new federal prosecutor hand-picked by President Donald Trump to target his longtime foe James Comey, was all alone when she convinced a grand jury on Thursday to indict the former FBI director, according to two people with knowledge of the secret proceedings.
Halligan took over as U.S. attorney for the prestigious Eastern District of Virginia on Monday. Three days later, she found herself the lone representative of a 300-member office spearheading a case that her predecessor — and many of the assistant U.S. attorneys who report to her — considered too weak to bring charges.
Her singular role was extraordinary.
Rarely does a U.S. attorney in a large office lay out the potential charges to a grand jury, much less one three days on the job with no prosecutorial experience and no background working the case.
First, rarely does the U.S. attorney supervising such a large office lay out the facts and potential charges for a suspect to a grand jury, much less one three days on the job with no prosecutorial experience and no background working the case. The move reinforced how uncomfortable her new staff was with presenting evidence they viewed as dubious and political retribution against Comey, who oversaw the FBI’s investigation into the Trump 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia.
Second, Halligan, 36, a lawyer and most recently a senior associate staff secretary at the White House, had never served as a prosecutor before Trump named her to the post.
Yet Halligan persuaded a majority of the 23 jurors that there was probable cause that Comey had committed a crime in his Sept. 30, 2020, testimony before Congress about the FBI’s investigations surrounding the 2016 election.
The grand jury returned its indictment some time after 6 p.m. on Thursday evening, according to sources familiar with the proceedings and court records. The grand jury agreed to indict Comey on two felony counts — lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding — based on Comey saying in his testimony that he did not authorize anyone to leak information about a specific FBI investigation. Fourteen of the 23 grand jurors voted to indict on both counts, according to two sources familiar with the proceedings.
But the grand jury, which hears only one side of the story — that of the prosecutor — declined to charge him on another crime Halligan pursued: false statements.
Halligan’s much greater challenge comes now, according to three sources briefed on events in her office. Prosecutors in the Eastern District were confiding to each other late Thursday night that Trump’s new appointee will have a difficult time finding even one assistant U.S. attorney in her office to help her take Comey to trial, according to two people familiar with internal discussions.
Inside the Alexandria-based prosecutors’ office, lawyers braced for more resignations as peers warned one another they will refuse to be part of prosecuting a case solely because the president demanded they go after his perceived enemy. On Thursday night, Comey’s son-in-law, Troy Edwards Jr., resigned as the office’s senior national security prosecutor, which his colleagues considered to be the first of many walking out the door.
And they noted the Justice Department’s depletion of career talent since Trump’s inauguration in January. Lawyers reviewing the unusually brief two-page indictment Thursday night and Friday morning said it already appears to have some elements that may trip up Halligan’s prosecution of Comey. For one, they noted, the indictment suggests Comey agreed with the premise of a question from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, about whether he had authorized his deputy, Andrew McCabe, to leak information about an FBI probe. It appears to attribute a quote to Comey that he never said. In answering a question from Cruz at the September 2020 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Comey said he stood by his previous 2017 testimony to Congress that he did not authorize a leak. But the indictment asserts that Comey lied by “falsely stating to a U.S. Senator” that he “had not ‘authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports.’” In fact, at the hearing in question, Comey answered Cruz’s question by saying: “I can only speak to my testimony. I stand by what the testimony you summarized, that I gave in May, of 2017.” He reiterated that his testimony “is the same today.”
Lisa Rubin is an MS NOW legal correspondent and a former litigator. Previously, she was the off-air legal analyst for “The Rachel Maddow Show” and “Alex Wagner Tonight.”
Ken Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for MS NOW.
Carol Leonnig is a senior investigative reporter with MS NOW.
Vaughn Hillyard is a senior White House reporter for MS NOW. Recommended
