Comey Lawyers Seek Jury Transcript     10/31 06:26

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Lawyers for former FBI Director James Comey want to 
review a transcript and audio recording of grand jury proceedings in his 
criminal case, citing what they say were "irregularities" in the process that 
should result in the dismissal of an indictment pushed by President Donald 
Trump.

   The request is one in a series of challenges that defense lawyers have waged 
against a criminal case charging Comey with making a false statement to 
Congress five years ago.

   Defense lawyers last week asked for the case to be thrown out before trial 
on the grounds that it constituted a vindictive prosecution and because they 
say the hastily appointed U.S. attorney who filed the indictment was illegally 
appointed to the job.

   Comey's lawyers leveled new arguments against that prosecutor, Lindsey 
Halligan, saying in a filing Thursday that her inexperience had tainted the 
process, created confusion and raised the prospect that legal and factual 
errors were presented to the grand jury that returned the indictment.

   As examples, they cite the fact that the indictment was secured after hours 
with only 14 grand juror votes and that Halligan erroneously signed two 
separate indictments -- including one containing a charge that the grand jury 
rejected.

   "All available information regarding Ms. Halligan's first-ever grand jury 
presentation smacks of irregularity," Comey's lawyers wrote. "It is virtually 
unheard of for a brand-new prosecutor to make her first grand jury presentation 
alone, without the supervision and guidance of an experienced prosecutor to 
ensure the absence of factual and legal errors."

   Trump had announced his plan to nominate Halligan as U.S. Attorney for the 
Eastern District of Virginia just one day after the prosecutor who had held the 
job, Erik Siebert, resigned under Trump administration pressure. In declaring 
his support for Halligan, Trump complained in a Truth Social post directed to 
Attorney General Pam Bondi that "nothing is being done" on investigations into 
some of his foes and called for action, specifically referencing inquiries into 
Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff 
of California.

   "Although such inexperience alone would not ordinarily satisfy the defense's 
burden for unsealing grand jury materials, that inexperience must be viewed 
alongside Ms. Halligan's likely motive to obtain an indictment to satisfy the 
President's demands, the inaccuracies in the indictment, and the determination 
of every career prosecutor to consider the case that charges were not 
warranted," Comey's lawyers wrote.

   In separate filings Thursday, Comey's legal team also requested specific 
details about the conduct at the center of the criminal case, saying the terse 
indictment is not even clear as to what Comey is alleged to have done wrong. 
They also asserted that the answers he gave to "fundamentally ambiguous 
questions" at the Senate hearing at which he is alleged to have lied were 
"literally true" and that, therefore, the case must be dismissed.

   The indictment accuses Comey of having misled the Senate Judiciary Committee 
on Sept. 30, 2020, in response to questions from Republican Sen. Ted Cruz about 
whether Comey had authorized a news media leak. But Comey's lawyers say the 
indictment misstates his exchange with Cruz, attributing to Comey statements he 
did not make.

   The defense team says the indictment omits context from Cruz's question that 
made clear he was asking Comey if he had authorized his deputy director, Andrew 
McCabe, to serve as an anonymous source to the news media. The lawyers say the 
indictment misleadingly suggests the questioning from Cruz concerned another 
person, a Columbia University law professor and Comey friend named Daniel 
Richman. An earlier FBI investigation into whether Comey had disclosed 
classified information through Richman concluded there was insufficient 
evidence to charge either man.

   "Senator Cruz's questions are fundamentally ambiguous because people of 
ordinary intellect would not be expected to understand that he meant to ask a 
broad question about Mr. Comey's interactions with anyone at the FBI -- 
including Daniel Richman -- during a colloquy focused on Mr. McCabe," Comey's 
lawyers wrote. "On the contrary, a reasonable person readily would have 
understood Senator Cruz to be asking only whether Mr. Comey had specifically 
authorized Mr. McCabe to be an anonymous source in news reports."