BREAKING: Trump prosecutor endures COURTROOM DISASTER

BREAKING: Trump prosecutor endures COURTROOM DISASTER

You’re watching the legal breakdown, Glenn. We’ve got a disaster in court with Donald Trump’s newly appointed US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, the attorney that was put in place expressly so that this administration could prosecute James Comey and what I presume will be Leticia James. Now, I’m going to put a tweet up up here on the screen uh courtesy of the senior editor from Lawfair, and this is the magistrate judge in this case trying to untangle Lindseay Halligan’s first venture into indicting someone. So, I thought what would be interesting here is if you and I read both parts because we’ve got uh Lindsay Hallagan and we’ve also got the judge in this case talking to each other. So, Glenn, you play the role of the court, the judge and I’ll play the role of Lindseay Halligan. And we’ll read this through to give everybody watching right now an idea of what just went down in court. Well, here you go, Brian. I am the presiding judge. And the judge says, “So, this has never happened before. I’ve been handed two documents that are in the Mr. Comey case that are inconsistent with one another. The one that says it’s a failure to concur in an indictment. It doesn’t say with respect to one count. It looks like they failed to concur across all three counts. So, I’m a little confused as to why I was handed two things with the same case number that are inconsistent. So, I I only reviewed the one with the two counts that our office reddrafted when we found out about the the two two counts that were true build and and and I signed that one. I I did not see the other one. I I I don’t know where that came from. You didn’t see it? I I did not see that one. So, your office didn’t prepare the indictment that they No, no, no, no, no. I I I No. I I prepared three counts. I only signed the one the two count. I don’t I don’t know which one the three counts you have in your hands. Okay. It has your signature on it. Okay. Uh well, so Glenn, that’s that’s the exchange there. You obviously have much more experience in court than the vast majority of folks who are watching this video right now. Can you give an idea of just how unorthodox this exchange was in a courtroom? Brian, this represents unparalleled incompetence and imbecility. That those are the only words I can come up with. It is a very important moment in a criminal case when a judge for the first time um is in a position to look at and affirm the propriety of an a felony indictment, particularly one that was brought for the first time in our nation’s history against an FBI director. Talk about an extraordinarily important, weighty, and even I would say solemn moment. And Lindseay Halagan doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing, what she’s reviewed, what she’s authorized, what she signed, what it means. This reads like something that I don’t even think the satirical publication The Onion could put together or envision. And here is immediately what I think of because I’ve been in this position. I’ve presented indictments. We’ve had arraignments in, you know, hundreds and hundreds of cases that I’ve handled personally. And um here is immediately where my mind went. The grand jury is a secret proceeding by law. And what that means, Brian, is it it it’s almost impossible to pierce the veil of grand jury secrecy. That is a tried andrue phrase that we hear any time a defense attorney will in attack the quality or the the propriety or the lawfulness of a criminal indictment. The prosecutor will say, “Your honor, you know, there is almost no precedent allowing the defense to pierce the veil of secrecy and discover what went on inside the grand jury. It’s just not done. There are lots of important policy reasons not to let defendants pierce the veil of secrecy. But here’s the thing, it can be done and it has been done in the past in relatively few circumstances. When there’s an affirmative showing that there has been potential corruption or something dramatically inappropriate, unlawful, or unethical that has gone on before the grand jury, the judge may very well allow the defendant to pierce the veil of secrecy and put on full display for all to see exactly what Lindseay Hallan did inside that grand jury that prompted, you know, at least 12 grand jurors, which is how many it takes to vote in favor of an indictment. Voted in favor of this indictment that Lindseay Halligan doesn’t even understand what’s in the two documents. You don’t present two indictments. You present one. The two documents that she presented to the magistrate judge and she then fumbled and stumbled around to even explain them to the judge’s satisfaction. This may end up being a very good thing for the cause of justice and for James Comey, but a very bad thing for Lindseay Halligan, for the Department of Justice writ large because if they expose the public view what Lindsey Halagan did, and it is as bad as this brief transcript e excerpt suggests it might be, you know, she’s going to find herself referred to bar counsel for an ethics investigation. And just a quick note before we continue to move on. Uh for those who are watching right now, if you’d like to stay on top of this legal news, please make sure to subscribe. The links to both of our channels are in the post description of this v video. Great way to support our work, great way to support independent media. What impact does this have on the case right now? Like to what extent does does an incompetent prosecutor uh alter the case or can you just be an incompetent prosecutor? Can you not know what you’re doing and still get full deference from this judge? Yeah, that’s a great question. So, there is a what we call a presumption of regularity that prosecutors are doing the right thing in the right way for the right reasons. I don’t think Lindseay Halligan or Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice as controlled by Donald Trump who, let’s face it, has anointed himself lead prosecutor in all criminal cases against his enemies. I don’t think any of them are entitled to the presumption of regularity. I mean they are proving that day in and day out. Now when you ask about an incompetent prosecutor you know there there is no rule or precedent that says well a judge has to assess the competence of the prosecutor. Prosecutors come in all stripes in all flavors good bad competent incompetent expert novice um ethical and unethical. Um, but you know, it’s not really the competence of the prosecutor that will impact the trajectory of the case. It is if the judge sees that something has gone on that is a violation of the rule of law, a violation of the rules of procedure that govern the grand jury. Because remember, our our viewers should remember the grand jury is an arm of the court, not an arm of the executive branch, the prosecution. it is supervised quite literally by the chief judge of the federal district court in which the grand jury sits. So if there’s something that is done that either violates the rule of law, the constitution or the rules of procedure or there is something that potentially violates a constitutional or statutory right of the defendant which may have gone on here in the way the grand jury indictment was obtained by Lindseay Hallan then that could result in dismissal. But I don’t want people to get too excited about the prospect of this indictment being dismissed based on some of what we are now learning because if a judge dismisses an indictment for some impropriy in the grand jury, that will almost always give the prosecutors the ability to go back into the grand jury, clean it up, and issue a a subsequent indictment that might withstand an attack from the defense. Um, however, all bets are off here because of the evidence of vindictiveness, as you know, demonstrated by Donald Trump’s statements and posts over time saying that he wants his enemy, James Comey, prosecuted, evidence be damned. Um, that may end up resulting at some point in a dismissal with prejudice, meaning there’s no way this case could ever be brought back in court. So I understand that that even if Lindsey Haligan is flailing around that she might be uh that she might be given this presumption of regularity in the court, but does I guess as a broader question here, does her inability to not fumble around like a novice prosecutor, can that still kind of present itself in the way she argues this court? And so in the in the same way that she has no idea what she’s doing here as this whole process is beginning, don’t you expect to see her inexperience kind of present itself when she actually argues the thing? And if she’s arguing in a way that’s inexperience, that betrays her inexperience, won’t that just lend itself to to a lower likelihood of her actually getting this prosecution against James Comey where it needs to be? Oh, absolutely, Brian. If she is the prosecutor in this case, put a pin in that for a second. I would expect given what we just saw, the kind of opening salvo that this transcript represents her incompetence and I would say imbecility and she’s entirely illprepared to even answer basic questions from the magistrate judge that will clearly, you know, manifest itself in these proceedings as um her not being able to litigate her way out of a paper bag. I mean, she listen, she cannot come up to snuff on the experience required to competently try a really significant federal court prosecution in a matter of days, weeks, or even months. So, she will go down in flames if she is the prosecutor in the case. I don’t suspect she will be. And here’s why. There are already rumblings that she’s been trying to find prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia, United States Attorney’s Office, to handle the case. And it looks like, at least inferentially, there are no takers. Not surprisingly, because I think anybody who went into court as a Department of Justice uh prosecutor or as an assistant United States attorney, that’s what we call line prosecutors, will be putting their license to practice law on the line. You can’t go in and try to prop up a vindictive prosecution that is not supported by the evidence, which is what all of the public reporting tends to indicate, especially when you look at the testimony of James Comey twice over before congressional committees. They’re not going to have the goods to convict even if an ex even in the hands of an expert prosecutor. So, here is what might happen, and bear with me because I suspect this is what will end up happening. They’re going to look for somebody over at the main Department of Justice, not even at the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, and they’re going to try to find some political appointee of Donald Trump, some flunky, some lap dog, some sickopant who might have some court experience, and take that person from the main Department of Justice across the river in DC, put them over in that courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, and try to get that person to prosecute this vindictive, evidence-free, baseless prosecution. So, I don’t know that you’ll actually see see Lindseay Halligan other than as a potted plant second chair sitting at council table, but not actively engaging in the litigation itself. But doesn’t that put the political appointee in the same position that any prosecutor would have been put in? Meaning, if you’re going to engage in a vindictive prosecution, then your law license can be on the line. Whether you’re a high higher ranking political appointee in main justice or uh a a regular pro rank and file prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, don’t you still don’t you still butt up against the same issue for these prosecutors? Absolutely. But the point I’m trying to make is that the rank and file prosecutors who know what you know it takes to go into federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, the rocket docket. We’ve got a lot of nononsense judges there, including the one who has drawn this assignment and who will preside over the Comey case. They know what they’re getting into, which is why inferentially we’re beginning to hear that they’re refusing to do it. So, he’s going to have to get a political appointee who will be on the hook ethically the way anybody else would. But I have a feeling that may be the only person they may be able to find, some lap dog political appointee to go in and put his or her bar license on the line to please dear leader. Last question on this. Can prosecutors, whether it’s a rank and file prosecutor in Eastern Virginia or in Maine justice, can they disobey an order from either, you know, Lindseay Halligan or Donald Trump to go in and argue this case? Like, to what extent do they have discretion here? That’s a great question, and I’m I want to be upfront with the viewers. There’s no hard and fast answer to that question like there is in the military. And let me use that by way of analogy. I was an active duty army jag for six and a half years. We are required by our oath of loyalty to the constitution and our military obligations. We are required to obey lawful orders, but we’re also required to disobey patently unlawful orders. So, we know the dos and don’ts of military service, what we’re allowed to do. um in the in the civilian sector in the federal government it’s not quite so clear you know if a a supervisor comes and tries to give you an assignment and you try to decline you refuse to accept that assignment it sort of depends on the reason now if you stand up and say listen my my loyalty not only to the constitution but to the code of ethics that I am bound to uh to comply with mandate that I can’t accept this assignment. The next question becomes, well, could the Trump administration could Lindsey Hallagan retaliate by, you know, just unlawfully terminating somebody’s employment? Well, the answer is of course they could because they’ve done it several times over to, for example, January 6 prosecutors. So, you know, the the the question of what are the implications of declining to accept an assignment that a supervisor tries to give you, you know, you may still have all sorts of legal and procedural protections as a civil servant going to the MSPB, the Merit Systems Protection Board, for example. But, you know, all of that is sort of tossed out the window in the age of Trump because they don’t really care if they unlawfully terminate people. They basically do it and they challenge that person to yeah, you go ahead and try to, you know, vindicate your rights that were just violated and we will make that equally difficult. But if you win a challenge at the end of the day and you have to be reinstalled with back pay, what does the Trump administration care? Because who foots the bill for that? We do. The American taxpayers, right? But at a bare minimum, these people uh will at least retain their law license and their ability to to provide for themselves and and their family, which you know, you can’t you can’t say the same thing for the Rudy Giulianis and and uh and other Trumpick events of the world who have kind of listened to him and engaged in this uh fools in these fools errands and have seen the consequences of doing exactly that. Yeah, Brian, let me let me build on that because that’s a great point. You know, part of what you asked previously was, well, don’t these political appointees, if they come over from Maine justice and try to prosecute, vindictively prosecute Comey, don’t they put their law licenses on the line? I said they do. And not only that, they will probably join the ignoble club of Rudy Giuliani, Kenneth Chzboro, Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, attorneys who have been disbarred or are still pending disbarment because they were willing to do the dirty, unethical, nefarious bidding of Donald Trump. Right. Well, look, uh, this process is obviously playing out right now. So, for those who are watching, if you want to follow along, please make sure to subscribe. The links to both of our channels are right here on the screen. It’s a great way to support our work. It is completely free and a great way to support independent media. I’m Brian Teller Cohen. And I’m Glenn Kersner. You’re watching the Legal Breakdown. [Music]

Legal Breakdown episode 603: Inexperienced Trump prosecutor encounters fed up judge

Subscribe to @GlennKirschner2

For more from Brian Tyler Cohen:
Straight-news titled YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@briantylercohennews
YouTube (español): https://www.youtube.com/@briantylercohenespanol
Order my #1 NYT bestselling book: https://www.harpercollins.com/pages/shameless
Newsletter: https://plus.briantylercohen.com
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/briantylercohen
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/36UvEHs
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0066rKCBIycIMI4os6Ec5V
Twitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohen
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohen
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohen
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@briantylercohen
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/briantylercohen.bsky.social
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@briantylercohen