OMFG

 I'll start with CNN:

 Bombshell about grand jury: Interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan took the stand briefly Wednesday, saying only two grand jurors reviewed the final indictment it handed up against former FBI Director James Comey. Comey’s attorney then argued Halligan’s testimony indicates, “there is no indictment” against his client.

I'll stipulate that facts are rare on the ground because this is a legal proceeding, and even lawyers covering such things answer to editors.  That said:

"Because typically, if an indictment is dismissed, the government has six months to represent, notwithstanding the expiration of the statute of limitations," [Former White House Counsel Ty] Cobb said. "This is an indictment, though, that doesn't really have to be dismissed. It doesn't really exist. It was never properly returned. So I think this is I think what we heard today, shocking never, never occurred before in American jurisprudence. I think it was will be dispositive. But on the other hand, there's so many dispositive issues here, including her illegal appointment."

Cobb called the move surprising and pointed to Halligan's "illegal appointment."

"It's shocking you couldn't find a high school stock boy at Home Depot who could have handled this more ineptly than Lindsey Halligan did," Cobb said. You know, taking an indictment that the grand jury never saw, having the foreman sign it and then presenting it to a judge? That's the height of ineptitude and misconduct."

Cobb also noted Bondi had backed up Halligan's documents in court, which could lead to Bondi herself being disbarred. 

And Halligan just took the stand (why? how? Had to be the judge ordered it.  Shit. Damn. Fuck.  That's total thermonuclear war bad.) 

"This is a very, very big deal," Rubin told host Ana Cabrera. "We knew that something had gone awry with respect to the presentation to the grand jury, based on Judge [William] Fitzpatrick's decision the other day, you and I were talking this morning about the fact that Judge Fitzpatrick had sort of said there were three categories of irregularities. One had to do with the use of evidence from old search warrants. One had to do with misstatements of the law that Lindsey Halligan had apparently made when she was before the grand jury, and the third had to do with the way in which the indictment was handed down and a gap in recordings of the grand jury proceedings themselves."

"What Judge Fitzpatrick had said at that time was there were only seven minutes between when Lindsey Halligan said in an affidavit that she was handing the three-count indictment, that the grand jury refused to return a true bill on, meaning they had refused one of the counts," Rubin added.

The judge found that Halligan had returned with an amended indictment far too quickly for it to have been properly corrected.

"When the hearing started before another magistrate judge in the district, Lindsey Vaala, at which the grand jury presented the two-count indictment with which Jim Comey has been charged, and Judge Fitzpatrick said in his decision, something here doesn't add up either," Rubin said. "Miss Halligan is mistaken as to the timing, or something went awry in the grand jury, because seven minutes is not enough time to present an indictment all over again to a grand jury, meaning if they refuse the first indictment, you don't have enough time in seven minutes to then present the second indictment, the one that was returned, the one that was charged against Comey to everyone here."

I'll pause here to note that explains why the Judge had Halligan take the stand.  That's when you head for your fallout shelter.

Halligan admitted during Wednesday's hearing that only two grand jurors saw the three-count indictment that was ultimately handed up.

"We now know the answer to that mystery, which was that the full grand jury never saw that indictment," Rubin said. "That is the height of prosecutorial misconduct. It is a basis in and of itself for the dismissal of this case. There is a reason that there was stunned silence in the courtroom."

Comey's team had filed a motion to dismiss the case as "selective and vindictive," and Rubin said Halligan's admission gave even more powerful evidence to end the prosecution.

"The question about grand jury misconduct is a motion that hasn't even been made yet by Jim Comey's legal team," Rubin said. "Why? Because up until a couple of days ago, they were even fighting for the evidence to support that motion. They had an instinct that something had gone wrong in the grand jury. Where does that instinct come from? It comes from the transcript of the return of the indictment in the first place. That is a transcript that we obtained, and it shows Lindsey Halligan handing simultaneously to that magistrate judge two signed instruments, and the magistrate judge says to her, sort of which of these two is the actual charging document here, and she says, 'Oh, I didn't sign both of them.' That very confusion was the tip-off to Jim Comey's team that something had gone wrong and they followed their instincts."

"Instinct" is being too kind to Halligan.  Seasoned defense attorneys that they were, they realized almost immediately that Halligan was more incompetent than a high school stock boy at Home Depot.  Then they forced her into a corner where the judge made her take the stand to explain JUST WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?  (You need to understand, when this happens, the prosecution may as well withdraw the case and go home and call their mother, and tell them they'll never be a lawyer again.  When the judge wants to know just what the fuck the prosecution has been doing, and makes them take the stand to answer that question, there is no good outcome for them.) And this is on Halligan (and Bondi for signing off).  This is why lawyers quit during the Saturday Night Massacre, but again, this one is on a level of completely nuking their legal careers.  ETTD, and I think it just killed the legal practice of Halligan and Bondi.

While I have you here, let me try to untangle this:

1. Halligan presented the original indictment with three counts against Comey. The grand jury deliberated for roughly two hours and took a vote.

2. After deliberations, the grand jury foreperson informed the EDVA grand jury coordinator that there were not enough votes to indict on Count 1 of the three-count indictment.

However, the entire document was then marked as though the grand jury had declined to return an indictment on all counts.

3. Meanwhile, someone (??) conveyed news of the no bill on Count 1 to Halligan (or her office).

Halligan’s office then drafted a new, two-count indictment that removed Count 1 from the original indictment presented to the grand jury.

4. But that second indictment was never presented to or voted on by the grand jury

Instead, the foreperson and Halligan signed it, and it was handed up in open court.

The result is that the operative indictment in the Comey case is one that the grand jury did not actually vote on.

More: The original indictment—the one the grand jury did see and vote on—was also handed up in open court along with the second indictment. 

But, as noted, the document was marked as though the grand jury had returned a no bill as to the entire indictment, not just Count 1.

That confused the magistrate because there seemed to be a facial discrepancy between the two documents handed up by the foreperson. 

So, for the record, she had the foreperson pencil in an amendment to the grand jury’s no bill report, specifying that the no bill was to Count 1.

BUT the original indictment w/ the pencilled-in amendment is not the operative charging document in the case. 

The operative indictment is the second one, which the grand jury did not vote on. 

What’s more, the amendment to the original indictment was not made in the presence of the grand jury.

Today, the judge asked how many grand jurors were present when the second indictment was handed up (and when the amendment to the report re: the original was made). 

AUSA Lemons said only the foreperson and one other grand juror were present when the docs were handed up.

Solid fucking incompetence throughout the office.  And USAG Bondi signed off on every bit of it, and tried twice to make Halligan's appointment valid. 

This is on Trump.  He thought he could fire and hire attorneys at whim.  I'm sure Blanche and Miller told him he could.  He fired the attorney who wouldn't prosecute Comey, himself an appointment that used up the 120 day appointment power under the statute.  Then he put Halligan in because she'd do his bidding, even though she didn't have the faintest idea how.  Trump didn't care; he just wanted a lawyer to do "lawyer things" and get an indictment on Comey.

And how he doesn't even have that. The price of complete stupidity is paid in the coin of the realm.