DOJ Has No Clue What It’s Doing With Comey Case, Legal Expert Warns

Members of the Justice Department team prosecuting former FBI Director James Comey are so green that they don’t actually know what they’re supposed to do with the case.

The former FBI chief was charged last month with lying to Congress regarding his testimony to Senator Ted Cruz in a 2020 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Comey has maintained his innocence and denied any wrongdoing. He could face a maximum of five years in prison if convicted.

Going against the grain of official statements by FBI leadership, Donald Trump has all but admitted that he was behind Comey’s indictment. But in order to make the case happen, certain people needed to be pushed out of the way and replaced. That included the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, whose replacement was handpicked by the president himself: White House aide Lindsey Halligan.

Ignoring protocol, Halligan has moved full steam ahead on prosecutions under the banner of Trump’s approval, despite the fact that she still needs to be confirmed by the Senate. (In fact, Trump has just two Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys in place.)

Halligan’s team is even less familiar with the former FBI director’s case. Halligan was reportedly “silent” during court proceedings Wednesday, while the two attorneys she recruited from the Eastern District of North Carolina agreed to a timeline on Comey’s terms. Their rationale, as recalled by MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin, was telling.

“Why? ‘Because we’re trying to give the defendant all the time he needs to prepare for trial,’” Rubin told the network Wednesday night, speaking from the perspective of Halligan’s team. “But also there’s a substantial amount of discovery in this case, your honor, including classified materials.”

“That’s a very, very nice, thinly disguised way of saying, ‘We’re brand new to this and we got to get our arms around it, too, because guess what? We’re not the ones who investigated this case. We’re not the ones who charged this case,’” Rubin continued. “‘And we got to learn what it is that we’re supposed to do here by some point in January.’”

Comey, who worked as a longtime federal prosecutor and even served as the assistant U.S. attorney in charge of the office prosecuting him now, has already challenged Halligan’s appointment.

“If Halligan was named as an interim U.S. attorney, Comey has an argument that she is not legally serving because the law does not permit successive appointments of interim U.S. attorneys by the attorney general,” Nina Mendelson, professor of law at University of Michigan, told CNN.

President Donald Trump got caught trying to make the peace deal between Israel and Hamas all about him.

During a roundtable discussion Wednesday with right-wing influencers to discuss antifascist resistance to Trump’s reign, Secretary of State Marco Rubio attempted to pass a note to the president. 

The Daily Beast reported that Trump appeared to read the note before motioning Rubio over. The secretary whispered in the president’s ear and then returned to his seat. Trump answered a few more questions, before informing the pitiable right-wing shills he’d assembled to discuss antifa that he had to go “solve some problems in the Middle East.” Rubio took remaining questions on his behalf.

Evan Vucci, AP’s chief photographer in Washington, snapped a photograph of the note and posted it on X. “Very close. We need you to approve a Truth Social post so you can announce deal first,” the note said. 

Two hours later, after a lengthy call with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and nepo-hire Jared Kushner to review his social media post, Trump announced a deal between Israel and Hamas.

“I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan. This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace. All Parties will be treated fairly!” he wrote on Truth Social. 

Per the terms of the deal, all remaining hostages will be released from Gaza, and scores of Palestinians may be released from Israeli prisons. Israel is reportedly in talks to release as many as 2,000 prisoners. 

It seems clear that Trump wants to be the savior of the Middle East. His 20-point peace plan places himself in charge of the so-called “Board of Peace” that will oversee Gaza’s “redevelopment” and governance. Trump’s group would theoretically run things until the Palestinian Authority implements its own reform plan that satisfies Trump’s standards and “is conducive to attracting investment.” 

It’s more clear than ever that in Trump’s White House, a peace deal is indistinguishable from a P.R. stunt, or a power grab. Trump’s announcement came just two days before this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient will be revealed—an honor for which Trump has fiercely lobbied, though still could never deserve.  

A Chicago pastor is suing the Trump administration after ICE agents shot him in the head with pepper balls. 

Last month, Reverend David Black, the senior pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, was shot right in the face with a pepper ball by an ICE agent standing on a rooftop above him while he was protesting at the Broadview ICE facility. Black can be seen with his arms spread wide, praying at the masked, armed agents above him, before being shot in the head at least twice and falling to his knees. Black said he could hear ICE laughing at him when it happened.  

The video has now gone viral. 

“I invited them to repentance,” Black told Religion News Service. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

The lawsuit hinges on ICE infringing upon protesters’ First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and religion, as agents have displayed “a pattern of extreme brutality” aimed to “silence the press and civilians.”

Black is not the only clergy member involved in the lawsuit. Unitarian minister Beth Johnson was “fired upon without warning or justification as she and other protesters and clergy members stood on the sidewalk singing ‘We Shall Overcome’ and other traditional songs of protest,” according to the lawsuit. United Methodist pastor Hannah Kardon was also shot at with pepper balls. 

It’s obvious in the video that Black—standing out among the crowd in his preacher’s garb—was absolutely a target, and it’s likely that the other faith leaders can say the same. 

The Trump administration accuses Black of trying to “dictate crowd-control policy in ways that would tie the hands of federal law enforcement officers,” while online MAGA has dismissed him as “antifa” for his vocal support of equal rights in Chicago. 

Donald Trump’s reckless social media use could imperil his administration’s already flimsy case against James Comey, the former FBI director and enemy of Trump who was indicted last month on evidently politically motivated charges.

On Wednesday evening, The Wall Street Journal revealed a striking detail about the president’s September 20 Truth Social post ordering Attorney General Pam Bondi to make haste in prosecuting Comey and other MAGA enemies, i.e., Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

As many suspected, that message was actually meant to be sent privately to the attorney general.

“Trump believed he had sent Bondi the message directly,” the Journal reports, “and was surprised to learn it was public.” Chagrined, the attorney general called the White House, and Trump provided a balm in a subsequent post praising Bondi.

“The misfire provided a window into how, through command and chaos, Trump has executed a wholesale transformation of the Justice Department,” the Journal reports. It also raises a host of legal troubles for the department’s case against Comey.

As former federal prosecutor Preet Bharara told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki following the revelation, this could pose “a big problem, legally and substantively” for Trump and the DOJ, giving Comey and the others mentioned in the message “viable motions to dismiss indictments.”

Comey’s attorney is reportedly looking to dismiss the case for “vindictive prosecution.” His trial is set for January, but before that, he can file a request to dismiss charges, on the ground that they were brought due to animus rather than legitimate legal reasons. As CNN’s Aaron Blake noted, if the Journal’s reporting is accurate, “it’s not inconceivable that an errant DM from Trump could be a big reason why Comey’s case is dismissed for vindictive prosecution.”

Though motions for vindictive prosecution are rarely successful, Bharara noted that Comey already has a better-than-average case for one, given Trump’s long record of public animosity toward him. What’s more, Bharara notes that the Journal’s reporting strongly suggests that additional communications between Trump and DOJ officials have taken place, which could help further determine the vindictiveness of the prosecution.

If the defense team acquires such messages in discovery, “that’s very, very bad for the prosecution,” he observed. Even worse would be if messages were deleted, which could potentially lead to an “adverse inference,” or the assumption that destroyed evidence would have been unfavorable to whoever destroyed it.

Further, Bharara said, “There is an argument that those communications and the destruction thereof by themselves are a basis to dismiss an indictment.”

A self-described journalist briefed the president and top U.S. officials Wednesday on the threat of the “homeless industrial complex.”

During a White House roundtable on antifa, Jonathan Choe, a reporter for Turning Point USA’s newsroom Frontlines, claimed that political extremism on the ideological left intersects with the “homeless drug crisis.” As evidence, he shared a recent report from the Discovery Institute, a conservative propaganda mill that, among other things, has advocated for ending classroom instruction on evolution.

The complex, according to those on the right who believe it’s real, is effectively a vast network of nonprofits and their beneficiaries who guzzle up federal funds intended for the homeless.

“In many cases, the homeless industrial complex is running cover for antifa, and antifa is benefiting from American tax dollars, and they’re essentially being used as the muscle,” Choe said.

He then pointed to Stop the Sweeps, a franchise-like, community-coordinated campaign that aims to prevent state violence against homeless encampments. People actually wanting to help the homeless is, apparently, not believable for Choe. Instead, he told the president and his allies that this organization’s ultimate intention was to create a P.R. crisis for law enforcement.

“What they’re doing quietly, is they’re bringing in antifa militants to manufacture a crisis to make the police look bad,” Choe said. (Of course, police don’t have to brutalize and violently evict the homeless.)

Some recent actions by supposed “antifa militants” include tossing a bucket of paint, protesting ICE facilities, and flag burning.

But Choe didn’t stop at antifa—instead, he lumped the famously decentralized antifascist organization in with the Democratic Socialists of America, placing a target on the back of a bona fide political party.

“These far-left, progressive groups tend to be aligning themselves with antifa,” Choe said. “There is a deeply embedded connection between the homeless housing nonprofit game in America, connected to antifa, and the far-left activists.”

For years, Donald Trump and his allies have pushed the idea that violent, far-left radicals are wreaking havoc in cities across the country, but their rhetoric has been noticeably devoid of evidence. To quell the noise, members of the House Intelligence Committee asked the CIA and FBI in 2020 to investigate false intelligence campaigns and find proof of the anti-fascist group’s “invasion.” Despite reports contradicting Trump’s rhetoric, the noise did not die down.

The reality is that homelessness is on the rise in the United States. An unprecedented national housing shortage, coupled with shallow social safety nets, has turned into an equally unprecedented rise in those experiencing homelessness. Rates spiked by 18 percent in 2024 compared to the year before, per data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But those figures are apparently just a launch pad for building more confounding conspiracies, as showcased by the work of the president’s cadre of far-right influencers.