Halligan ADMITS DEFEAT in DEVASTATING NEW Filing?!?!

We got breaking news and update in the James Comey indictment matter. Now that Lindsey Halligan and her team have admitted error in the courtroom before Judge Nachman off yesterday in the Eastern District of Virginia admitted that the grand jury never saw the entirety of the indictment that's being used against James Comey, never saw it all. It was just signed by the foreperson with one other grand juror present.

That there was no Transcript as required of that process. She had to admit that earlier filings that she made concerning the matter Were a lie were not true about her interaction with the grand jury and now a new filing that just got filed late last night at the direction of the judge, Judge Nakhmanoff, actually makes things worse for Lindsey Halligan. And what it means is that this indictment is likely to be dismissed with prejudice by Judge Nakhmanoff for a finding, among other things, that the indictment is

infirmed, that the process used was improper and defective constitutionally and under the case law, and therefore the indictment should be dismissed. And if it's dismissed, it is dismissed ultimately with prejudice, because there's no ability to put another grand jury in place. Because there was not a proper indictment, and without a proper indictment, that means they are out of time.

The statute of limitations has run. It's a five-year statute of limitations on a perjury charge, and that ran on September the 6th of 2025. She won't be able to put a new grand jury in place in November. We don't have a time machine. Let me go over with you what's happening with the new filing and why I believe in my reading of it that it's basically a concession by the federal government that they have a losing hand.

I'm Michael Popock. You're here on Legal AF. I'm traveling. I was just interviewing 11 attorneys general to brief our audience. But let me take a timeout and talk about this breaking news. How did we get here? Lindsay Halligan was handpicked by Donald Trump at a social media post to become the US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. She's a novice attorney who's never been a federal prosecutor before, never really been in federal court before. She had been an automobile insurance defense lawyer in Florida. That was her main

credential. Her main credential is loyalty and fealty to Donald Trump. She got picked, she got sent and pushed in alone without any backup, without any seasoned prosecutor next to her. No career prosecutor from the office, no one from Washington, D.C., no one in the senior level of the Department of Justice. She went in alone to get her first indictment before a grand jury. Don't try this at home, folks. It was like the indictment home game.

Don't try this at home. You know, this was a high wire act without a net and she screwed up. We know from earlier reporting about findings made by magistrate judge Fitzpatrick in the same manner that in the, that based on the transcripts that we do have, let alone the two hours that are missing and it looks like more missing transcripts that we do have, let alone the two hours that are missing, and it looks like more missing transcripts, that Lindsey Halligan violated at least the Fifth Amendment and the Sixth Amendment in charging the grand jury and answering their questions.

That's separate and apart from the actual document of the indictment that needs to be rendered and returned as a true bill by the grand jury. I'm focused here on this hot take about the defects in the process and in the actual document of the indictment. But even before that, the magistrate judge that reports to Judge Nachmanoff observed in his own review of the transcript that he had, that she violated the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, that she told the grand jury that James Comey needed to defend himself in court, which violates his Fifth Amendment right

against self-incrimination. She also suggested to the jury that the burden of proof was not on the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that somebody who's presumed innocent is guilty, but that they have some obligation

and some burden to refute the government's evidence. That's a fundamental cardinal violations that should also lead to the dismissal of the indictment and that will be the subject of subject of a separate motion once the grand jury material is reviewed by the Lawyers for the defense but this hearing was not even about the indictment that happened yesterday This hearing was about whether vindictive prosecution

So infected the process that the indictment should be dismissed. But while they were in court, Judge Nakhmanov decided to ask a few questions of the lawyer there representing the government, a young novice prosecutor himself named Tyler Lemons.

But when he got frustrated with Tyler Lemons' answers about process, he then called Lindsay Halligan up to the stand. She effectively became a witness for the defense. He said, you're counsel of record, you signed everything as the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, come up here and be heard by the court. And he said, did the entirety of the grand jury, did the entirety of the grand jury that voted for the indictment see

the second indictment that you presented to the magistrate judge as the actual indictment of the defendant James Comey on two counts but not three counts of related to perjury and obstruction, yes or no? She said no. He said then we have a problem. There is a case from 1969 that is prevailing law

in the circuit, which is called the Gathers case, which talks about what happens when a grand jury doesn't see an indictment and doesn't sign off, if you will, on an indictment being used against the criminal defendant. And he said, I want, by the end of the day today,

I want, yesterday, I want a brief. I want a legal brief, a legal memo from you, Mr. Lemons, but with Ms. Halligan's name on it, telling me why your indictment isn't dead in the water undergathers. Now, there's a separate issue here. The separate having them, having already admitted the error, having already admitted that not all the grand jury saw it, you then have the gap in the grand jury transcript, another defect. See, every time a prosecutor interacts with the grand jury, there is supposed to be a court

reporter present. But the reason that judges like Judge Nachmanoff and Judge and Magistrate Judge Fitzpatrick, and Judge Curry, another judge who's handling whether Lindsey Halligan was illegally appointed to be the prosecutor on a separate schedule. The reason that they can't figure out what happened and why there were two indictments, both signed by Lindsey Halligan, and how did the second one come into being? What is its origin story. The reason is there's a gap in the transcript. Every time a prosecutor interacts with a grand jury, any member of the grand jury except when they are deliberating,

there's supposed to be a transcript, but there isn't one. That's why they're trying to piece it together from affidavits that, sworn statements under oath that Lindsay Halligan filed that said, I never had any interaction with the grand jury between 437 and 630. That's untrue. Because she had to have had interaction in order to learn that they had rejected the first indictment, the one with three counts, and to then try to cut, apparently they cut and pasted, I'm not making this up now, they cut and pasted, they edited with a grand jury coordinator,

the first indictment that was rejected by the grand jury, made it into the second indictment, just taking out, there were two count twos by the way, taking out one of the counts and then grabbing a grand juror and the grand jury foreperson who was still around,

the rest of the grand jurors having gone home and said, here, sign here. If that doesn't sound right to you, whether you went to law school or not, it's not right. You know, that doesn't even pass the straight face test. I'm having trouble keeping a straight face.

So with all of that going on, we had the new briefing. Before we get to the new briefing, we had the unique opportunity to have one of our commentators, one of our contributors, Adam Klasfeld, of All Rise News, on another windy day in front of the courthouse do reporting as soon as he walked out. I want to show you a clip from that as well. Let's play a clip of Adam Klasfeld

yesterday reporting from the courthouse on these issues. Every day that I am inside of this courthouse or looking at this court docket, there seems to appear a new viable way to attack the James Comey indictment of the new attack that emerged today is the fact that as you noted Michael the grand jury never saw the indictment that became the United States versus James Comey.

Stop right there. For those that don't because because that is so momentous. See, even the trains are excited in your area. Okay, this is how it works, folks. You get what's called a true bill of indictment. It needs to come from,

and usually 14 or a majority of your grand jurors. They have to have seen the document. A jury foreperson signs as a proxy on behalf of the people that voted for it, and you deliver that to the magistrate judge. If that didn't happen in any of that order that I just described, you don't have an indictment.

Right. And so the last time we spoke with me in front of this courthouse, Michael, this was during the disqualification hearings for Lindsey Halligan. And at the time we learned that there was a more than two hour gap in the grand jury record because Lindsey Halligan had presented the case to the grand jury at 428 p.m. The indictment is returned at 640 p.m. Today we got a little bit more detail about that because a judge grilled first Halligan's assistant,

Tyler Lemons, and then Halligan herself in the only words that she uttered during today's hearing about what happened in between because we know that there were two indictments. The first one, the grand jury no-billed the top count. Then apparently, before being presented with the second indictment, a number of grand jurors went home. And according to Lindsay Halligan,

the only people who actually saw the second grand jury indictment, which was essentially an edit of the first indictment, exactly. They, it was since they knew build the first count, they had presented a second indictment with the count one, what was count one removed.

Now let me get to the brief that just got filed. Let me tell you why they're dead. It's no other way for me to put it, having practiced for 35 years. So here's the filing that gets made. Notice pursuant to the court's oral order.

The court ordered the parties to submit briefs regarding the effect of any of Gaither versus the United States, a case from 1969. And they say, as explained below in just seven measly pages, Gaither does not require the dismissal of the indictment. They say it because the grand jury in Gaither

never saw a version of the eventual indictment. But in this case, the grand jury was provided the proposed indictment, deliberated, and determined that probable cause existed. But right away, he's already off course. That is untrue.

They saw the first indictment with three counts. They never saw the second indictment with two counts. What their argument is, is it doesn't matter. We just removed a count. But you have to have 12 or more grand jurors agree on the indictment, including its language. Then how do you do that if they all went home except for two? You only had two out of 12. So that's not a good place for you to be. They say that the two charges that they indicted on,

it's on page one, contained in the indictment are identical to the second and third charges that are included in the proposed indictment that was provided to the grand jury. Only the numbering of the counts is off. Well, we already knew the numbering was off.

There were two count twos. They say that given that the grand jury was presented with the two counts on which it voted to return an indictment, Gaither does not require dismissal. I don't see that at all. I think they have a infirmity

within this particular indictmentment and that whether it's Gaither or it's another precedent means that this indictment needs to fail. You can't go out and you can't have the law be, think about where the government's position is, under them the law would be that the grand jury can go home and all sorts of editing, cutting, and pasting, and white out can happen in the hallway as long as one of the grand jurors is still hanging around to sign it. I don't think that's

okay. I think that actually encourages prosecutorial misconduct in the hallway, don't you? And I think the judge will too. So the judge says these are very weighty issues. He's not going to make an immediate ruling, but I expect him now that he has the full briefing to make a ruling likely before Thanksgiving. We're actually waiting for two rulings before Thanksgiving, one from Judge Curry as to what she's going to do with the indictment. We have so many people looking at the indictment, it's hard to keep track. I'll do it for you. Judge Curry, who heard oral argument last week, is trying to decide whether Lindsay Halligan should

be bounced as the US attorney and the indictment go with her as a remedy. Because if she was illegally appointed, the argument goes, then everything she did is void. Void. So the indictment should fall. Now she might bounce and not go after the indictment and leave it to Judge Nachmanoff, who's got the indictment in front of him, to decide whether the indictment goes because of these other infirmities and these other weaknesses and admissions I just went over. So there's so many different attacks on this indictment.

I mean, the lawyers for James Comey are extraordinary. When I heard Michael Dreeben was one of the lawyers for James Comey, my mouth dropped open out of respect. Michael Dreeben, I've been following most of my career. He has argued 105 cases successfully before the United States Supreme Court. He's an appellate guru. He's an appellate advocate extraordinaire,

and he is on Fitzgerald's team, along with Jessica Carmichael, a leading Virginia criminal defense lawyer. And they jumped up when they heard about the admission that the entirety of the grand jury never saw the actual indictment in order to sign it, in order to authorize or ratify it. And they said, Your Honor, we have no indictment. We have no indictment against Mr. Comey. And that means, just to take one chess move further, if that indictment is invalid, here's the domino,

here's the cascading effect. If that indictment is invalid, there was no indictment within the statute of limitations, which is a period of time, they had five years to bring a proper indictment. They were pushed up against the clock, they didn't get it, they failed because of Lindsey Halligan there alone with her, I don't know, her cookbook. Somebody gave her a script.

Of course, things go off script because you can't anticipate everything. And she screwed it up. They can't impound on a new grand jury to fix it and equity shouldn't step in to give them credit to stop the clock on the statute of limitations.

So the indictment, if he finds that indictment fails and was not a true bill of indictment returned, case over, dismissed, no more grand jury, no more indictment against James Comey because statute of limitations has run. We'll follow it. I think we're going to get two orders before Thanksgiving or just after. Only here on Legal AF. Take a moment, hit the free subscribe button. This is where you want to be at the intersection of law and politics throughout today and the weekend. Tune in for my interviews. I have two, five attorneys general panels. So 10 attorneys general that I interview on your behalf and separate interviews with attorneys generals who are Democrats, 23 of them who are fighting every day, who speak every other

day. Every other day they meet and speak about how to defeat Donald Trump. You want to hear from them. You want to be briefed from them. And I'm going to do it for you all week, the rest of the week here on Legal AF. If you like this kind of content, hit the free, the free subscribe button, come over to Legal AF YouTube and Substack and do the exact same thing. So until my next report, I'm Michael Popock. I'm Michael Popock, and I got some big news for our audience. Most of you know me as the co-founder

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