How Badly Halligan Fucked The Comey Indictment

 David French:

I never witnessed the level of legal incompetence that we are witnessing from the Trump administration," wrote French, a longtime critic of the president. Among other things, he noted, the magistrate judge found this week "that the prosecutors had mishandled attorney-client communications between Comey and one of his former lawyers, Daniel Richman, who is a law professor at Columbia Law School and a personal friend of Comey’s" — which means Halligan violated a "sacred" tenet of the legal process.

Meanwhile, "The magistrate also raised concerns about whether the Trump F.B.I. 'complied with a fundamental requirement of the Fourth Amendment' when it executed the Richman search," and "when grand jurors challenged Halligan on the strength of the evidence against Comey, Halligan responded with a 'fundamental and highly prejudicial misstatement of the law that suggests to the grand jury that Mr. Comey does not have a Fifth Amendment right not to testify at trial.'"

It follows confusion around the grand jury reviewing the second indictment which, French noted, was itself a massive blow, with the judge saying, “If this procedure did not take place, then the court is in uncharted legal territory in that the indictment returned in open court was not the same charging document presented to and deliberated upon by the grand jury.”

The magistrate judge has not yet made a move to dismiss the case, but, French wrote, that appears to be only part of Halligan's worries now.

"We do not yet know if Halligan’s procedural irregularities will be fatal to the case, but I do know that if I’d committed that level of malpractice when I was litigating, it would have been instantly fatal to my continued employment," he concluded.

So:

A) breach of attorney-client privilege 

B) 4th Amendment violations 

C) misstating the law in 5th Amendment protection 

D) gross violations of the indictment process 

D) is not exactly “uncharted territory.” 

It’s just so rare, it’s virtually unheard of.  Fourth Circuit, btw, is where EDVA is. I think there are ample grounds for dismissal, but if a defective indictment “confers no jurisdiction whatsoever upon the trial court,” that means the case HAS to be dismissed. And can’t be brought again, because the statute of limitations on Comey has run.

What does this do to Halligan? I have no idea. But the Comey case is ended, if that’s the state of the law in the EDVA.

I mean, quite literally, lawyers never see this situation.  Barb McQuade:

I will confess, I have never seen a situation before where the grand jury never saw the indictment, so the remedy is unknown, but I can’t believe an unseen indictment could be valid.

The remedy is not unknown. It’s just this kind of error is as rare as hen’s teeth, so who needs to keep it in mind?