WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey on Monday filed motions searching for the dismissal of the legal fees introduced towards him, arguing that the lawyer President Donald Trump named to prosecute him, Lindsey Halligan, wasn’t correctly appointed and that the case was politically motivated.
Comey’s staff argued that the indictment arose from “a number of evident constitutional violations and an egregious abuse of energy by the federal authorities” and that the “bedrock ideas of due course of and equal safety have lengthy ensured that authorities officers could not use courts to punish and imprison their perceived private and political enemies.”
Halligan, a former insurance coverage lawyer who’s now interim head of the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace for the Japanese District of Virginia, was “defectively appointed to her workplace as an interim U.S. Legal professional,” Comey’s attorneys argued, including that her appointment “violated the congressionally designed and constitutionally compelled means for the Legal professional Basic to nominate an official as interim U.S. Legal professional.”
Comey’s staff went on to argue that, “as a result of no correctly appointed Government Department official sought and obtained the indictment, the indictment is equally a nullity.”
Comey, one among a number of Trump critics focused by the Justice Division this 12 months, has pleaded not responsible to the fees towards him, which concentrate on congressional testimony in 2020 when he stood by earlier testimony he gave in 2017 concerning the authorization of leaks to the media when he was head of the FBI.
One in all Comey’s reveals submitted Monday is a 60-page submitting with statements that Comey and Trump have made about one another.
The protection additional argued that the Justice Division had maintained excessive requirements of ethics for many years and solely introduced circumstances after they had been supported by the information and that legislation, and that the fees towards Comey had been a “sharp departure” from that custom.
“Ample goal proof — a lot of which comes instantly from authorities officers’ personal public statements and admissions — establishes that the federal government’s animus towards Mr. Comey led on to this vindictive and selective prosecution,” Comey’s staff wrote.
His attorneys additionally referenced the president’s September social media publish through which he referred to as on Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi to prosecute his political foes. His attorneys stated that, “Lower than 48 hours after President Trump’s publish, Ms. Halligan was sworn in as interim U.S. Legal professional for the Japanese District of Virginia. Ms. Halligan was a particular assistant to the President and White Home official.”
Halligan’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Monday’s filings.
Comey’s attorneys famous that Halligan, who beforehand labored as a private lawyer for Trump, lacked prosecutorial expertise, including that “no different prosecutor from the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace for the Japanese District of Virginia participated within the grand jury presentation. Ms. Halligan offered the grand jury with a three-count indictment.”
“Ms. Halligan’s illegal appointment tainted the structural integrity of the grand jury course of. Absent Ms. Halligan’s illegal title, she wouldn’t have been capable of enter the grand jury room, not to mention current and signal an indictment,” they wrote.
