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BREAKING: Comey Indictment DISMISSED, Halligan Appointment “Invalid” (w/ Kyle Cheney)
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All right. Hey everybody. We are live. I'm joined by an impeccably dressed Andrew Egger and hopefully pretty soon Kyle Cheney of Politico is going to be joining us because neither Andrew or I are lawyers nor do we cover this stuff on the regular. But the big news today is that James Come. Oh, there he is.
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C
Also not a lawyer.
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B
Nah. But you cover this stuff more than we do. So we're grateful for your, we're grateful for your entrance here. Kyle Cheney of Politico joins us. We're joining everyone live because the big news now is that the indictments against James Comey and Leticia James have been dismissed. They were dismissed because, because the appointed U.S. attorney in this case, Lindsay Halligan, who was ruled was illegally appointed. But Kyle, before Andrew and I pretend to know what we're talking about. Why don't you tell us what actually is happening?
- [01:08]
C
I may be pretending to here, but, but no, the, I mean the, the story is the judge, as we suspected she would, ruled that, that the Halligan appointment was, was flawed from the beginning. That, that essentially the, the attorney general violated the appointments clause and, and federal law by pointing someone to a role that required basically at this point required Senate confirmation. There had already been an interim U.S. attorney who served for the legal limit of 120 days. And once he was forced out, that's Eric Seabird was forced out that you couldn't just appoint a new interim. You had to get a Senate confirmed person in there. And so essentially it unwinds everything. Basically the judge rewound the clock to pre indictment and said everything else after that is invalid.
- [01:57]
B
That's amazing. Before we get into sort of the, the significance of this, which I, I contend is incredibly significant, I just want to make sure for the people who are just joining us that I have the chronology here and you can correct me if I'm wrong because you've been covering this from the jump. So Eric Sabar is the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. He is there on an interim appointment even though the two Democratic senators from the state are supportive of his nomination. He's handed this issue about James Comey and whether or not James Comey perjured himself in testimony before Congress about whether or not he had leaked two members of the media during the Clinton investigation or was the. No, sorry, the Trump investigation by Trump's ties to Russia.
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A
Yes.
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C
Okay.
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B
Cyber, as we know from reporting, was of the mindset that there was not really a substantial case there that certainly not enough to bring to trial and get a conviction. He resists, he resists, he resists. And eventually Trump gets fed up and he fires cyber. He pushes him out and then he installs Lindsey Halligan, who is his ex personal attorney, someone with absolutely no prosecutorial experience. I believe she was an insurance lawyer. Was that right?
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C
Yes.
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B
Okay. Something like that. All right. She then brings the indictment. And here's where it gets a little hazy for me. She brings an indictment, she gets two of the three counts, she then brings another, brings the two count indictment back, but doesn't actually show the grand jury. It might be irrelevant.
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C
That's a whole other issue. I mean, now that the first, now that this indictment's gone, I think that issue might go.
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A
Can I say one thing on that? Because just, just real, real fast.
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B
Wait, I just got to finish the chronology and then you can say something. So then the question is from Comey's lawyers is, wait a second. So is the indictment correct? And also is Lindsey Halligan actually allowed to be serving in this role because Cybert had already exceeded his 120 days and therefore you have to go back to the center for confirmation. That's correct. All that's correct. Right. Okay, Andrew, go ahead.
- [04:03]
A
Oh, the only thing I was going to say is that like, I, I do sort of wonder if this news today is actually coming as a bit of like a breath of relief for Lindsey Halligan herself, because all, like the last few weeks we have been just kind, I mean, you especially Kyle, but people have just been kind of watching with their jaws on the floor at some of the proceedings that have been going on in the very preliminary stages of this trial, which is like weird errors and slip ups and mess ups and procedure not being followed by this person who again, has never run these prosecutions. And so if it is in fact the case that all of this, the ruling today, short circuits all that. Right. Like it does. She could have run the best prosecution of all time and this ruling would not be fundamentally different because it just says she was improperly appointed in the first place. It kind of takes it off of her plate.
- [04:50]
C
No, you nailed, you nailed it. Actually, I've had this exact conversation with colleagues in my newsroom about this is the cleanest outcome for her personally because every other outcome involves her screwing up her Doing something pernicious like the, the vindictive prosecution angle, which if they re indict that will come back too. And there's a whole other question about whether they can re indict Comey over this. But yeah, this removes those from the equation at this point. If they do re indict, presumably they wouldn't make the same procedural screw ups that they did and those wouldn't be live issues. There would be many other issues and obstacles to bringing these cases either way, but not those embarrassing, inexperienced, related ones.
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B
So Kyle, the, the question of reindeement is actually quite critical here because they had rushed this prosecution to get in front of the statute of limitations. Right. And they made the indictment, they got it in time. They got before the grand jury, whatever you want to say about how that process went, they did get an indictment under the statute. Now that she's invalid or invalidated, I should say Comey's arguing, Comey's lawyers are arguing that this is done. He's in the clear. It doesn't matter if it was with prejudice because we are not past the statute of limitations. Do they have a point?
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C
They do. I mean that actually in my read of the ruling initially was that the judges almost echoed that she dismissed the case without prejudice, which is a key thing that basically says they can, they could theoretically re indict, you know, you dismiss it with prejudice. She says there is no circumstance in which you should be able to re bring this case. She's leaving that open. But she also says in the same breath, but because this indictment was invalid from the beginning and Pam Bondi's appointment of Lindsey Halligan to this role, you know, wasn't legal, that shouldn't give you this automatic, like this automatic, you know, tolling of the statute of limitations. I'm seeing a lot of debate on, you know, on X and on social media that sort of suggests that the judge may not have fully explained that there are other avenues to bring this indictment again, that there is still a six month grace period for DOD to try again despite her analysis.
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B
So what would the, what would the avenues be?
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C
What's. Well, I mean essentially there's a law on the books that says if an indictment is dismissed for any reason, you know, even after the statute of limitations, it gives DOJ a six month reprieve to try again. And so my read of the judge was saying is because there was no valid indictment at the, at the outset, that that doesn't apply. But that may not be the case. There may be, there's other interpretations of that to say that no matter the reason, even if it's because the ballot indictment was void from the beginning, you still, DOJ still gets that six month grace period.
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A
Yeah. The one interesting question there is can they. But then obviously the other really interesting one is will they? Right. Because I mean, that's the other weird thing about this is like the reason that Halligan was stuck in there in the first place is because Donald Trump plainly thought like he wasn't going to get anybody else who would pull the trigger on this thing for him. That's why he forced Eric Seibert out in the first place. And it seems like the career prosecutors who are working under Seibert shared his opinion. I mean, maybe I'm, maybe I'm mixing up the cases with the Comey and the Letitia James here. Am I correct to understand that was pretty much their recommendation going forward, like as a procedural matter from the career staff in that, yeah, there was no.
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C
Indictment here and the evidence of that is that she had none of them with her in the grand jury room. You know, she brought this single handedly. It's one of the reasons the indictment has to go is that there was no career person. They're putting their signature on this that, you know, even if you kick off Lindsey Halligan, at least someone with authority was there and there wasn't. So I think, I think that's true.
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B
Could they, I guess in theory there's a couple ways around this. Right. One is try to get a different judge to consider the case. Is that a possibility?
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C
I don't think so. I think they would stick with the judge here. You couldn't, but I think you. So in addition to finding another prosecutor, they could in theory have Lindsey Halligan do it again, but she would have to do it under a different authority. She wouldn't be the interim U.S. attorney. They could, they, what they tried to do was retroactively say, oh, by the way, she's the first assistant, you know, special U.S. attorney from the district. I think they could do that in a legitimate way, but they couldn't do it retroactively to the day.
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B
I just want to make sure I understand you correctly. She could take on a title in the office that's not interim U.S. attorney. They could just, they could find some other interim U.S. attorney who could then hire Lindsay Halligan as a attorney.
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C
I don't even know if they need to find someone new to lead the office. They would just appoint her to a position that is within the Attorney General's power to put her in as like a special assistant U.S. attorney or something in the office. There may be other ways.
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B
Give her, give her a new title, basically. That's more.
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C
Yeah, I think that's, that's, that's one of the arguments I think DOJ would have in their favor actually is like, look, this is a technicality. Like the Attorney General clearly has the authority to put someone in that office in a different role, not as, Maybe as interim U.S. attorney, but in another role in which she would have been empowered to bring this case. But they didn't do it. So the initial indictment's gone, but maybe she could do it the right way the next time.
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B
But they can't get a new judge.
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C
You don't think that would go back, it would go back to the same judge, presumably.
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B
Okay, go ahead.
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A
Can I ask you a different procedural question? Because one of the things that was so interesting about this indictment is that the judge kind of talked early on at length about after that 120 day period has expired, it's no longer the Attorney General's job to appoint this interim or acting U.S. attorney and that that job actually reverts to I believe a panel of the district courts or the district judges rather, in that, in that jurisdiction. And we saw that earlier this year with Alina Haba in New Jersey where she ran out her 120 days. They tried to appoint somebody new and then the DOJ tried to find a way to get around that and get Haba back in there. If we were to see that happen in this district, like if, if the judges were now to say, all right, you know, this position has been declared vacant and like we need to stick somebody else in there, would that be, I mean, would we see like a repeat of the Haba thing from, from the DOJ or like, can we know how they would respond or is it too early to tell?
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C
This is a very live issue because it's now it's, I think there's like five districts in the, in the country where this is happening and it's being litigated. It's up in the appeals court and the third District, which is based on the Haba case. You know, I think if I remember right, the district judges did appoint Siebert to take that to the job. So after his 120 days ran out, they appointed him to it. And then he's supposed to serve indefinitely until they get a Senate confirmed replacement. DOJ and the Trump administration in general, their view of executive power is we can't have the courts telling us who to put in this role. It's not, we think we'll win on that fight eventually. They haven't yet, but that is, you know, not out of the realm that they could, they could actually win that.
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A
Fight just because that statute would be like actually unconstitutional.
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C
Yeah. I mean, the way this court, the way the Supreme Court has been, you know, siding with him on executive power and say, like, is it really on something of this consequence of youth attorney? Do we really think it's appropriate for the courts to be stepping on the executive's turf on that?
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A
Right.
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C
I mean, that law had been on the, that had been the case for, you know, 150 years until, you know, until now, essentially. I mean, there's been some around that, but, but, you know, I could see.
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B
That hearing a lot of that these days. Let me, I want to talk a bit about the politics of this and maybe less politics, but like the status of the DOJ too. Like, I, to me, as someone who's talked to a bunch of people who've worked at the doj, who knows people who have worked at the doj, who's talked to people about what's happening at the Eastern District of Virginia specifically, like, this is a humiliation. I mean, I understand it was a technical issue and you know, maybe it was the most elegant way for Lindsay Halligan to get out of this. And, and I, I could, I could understand that case, but starting with the mishap, the sort of ham fisted indictment itself and the appointment and now this dismissal, this is really sort of a deeply unprofessional series of events. And I don't know if there's another way to actually read that, frankly.
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C
I mean, because it's the, you know, as Andrew was saying, it's the cleanest version. I think there's another universe where, and in fact, I think in some ways what Comey would have preferred is for the judge to have ruled on the vindictive prosecution issue before this happened.
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B
Right. You know, this is deeply unprofessional the way this happens.
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C
Yeah, it's a rush job. It's sloppy. It's, you know, there's still unresolved questions about whether she botched the grand jury process itself. So forget the appointment. But did she misinstruct them on the law? We talked about the two count indictment versus the three. Did they make some procedural screw ups there? Both of those issues could have sunk the indictment separately than the appointment issue. And then you have the vindictive prosecution issue, which would have been, I think, the most politically explosive way for this case to be thrown out.
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B
And think about how many people quit the office over this just to end up at this outcome. I mean, you lost a lot of institutional talent and the, and I, I, maybe you notice, but I, I don't. But, like, obviously the Letitia James case is also now at least iced. Are there other cases that she's involved in that she's touched that could be, in theory, hampered by this? I mean, we only know of these two high profile ones, but she is the acting U. S. Attorney.
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C
I doubt it. I doubt it because of what I mentioned before, which is that the other cases, if they're run of the mill cases, who are all signed and carried out by Assistant U.S. attorneys.
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B
All right, I don't know. Andrew thinks this is the best outcome, so I'll let him make his case.
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A
Oh, just in theory, kind of like what Kyle was just saying. In theory, among the plausible outcomes, this is the one that lets Trump run the playbook he would want to run where it's just a deep state judge who's throwing Comey a bone, and they don't rule on the merits of the selected prosecution or anything like that. I mean, that is all just to assume that there was never really a universe in which this was going to lead to conviction, which I think is true. But obviously, you know, I'm sure if you're Comey, you're like, this is pretty fine outcome for me as well.
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C
And this is the quickest outcome. So, you know, I think, as Andrew just alluded to, I think one of the questions was, is Trump, does Trump care about a conviction or does he just want to drag someone through the process as make it humiliating, make it expensive, make it long? This has been six weeks, right. Since the indictment, I think. Am I doing that math right? Seven weeks maybe. And now the case, it was late.
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B
It was mid to late September. So, yeah, it's been a little six or seven weeks, something like that.
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C
Yeah. And that we're getting there. And like that's. These cases can drag out for you for years. And so, you know, Trump wanted to drag him through this process in an excruciating way. This was not it. This was not the outcome. You know, it's the best outcome for.
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B
Comey in that sense, I suppose. I think Trump wanted a conviction, and I think that, I mean, yeah, maybe he wanted to humiliate. Of course he wants to humiliate Comey. Right. He wants to make.
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C
But I think to Andrew's point, you get to yell deep stage. You know, if you don't get the outcome you want. You get to yell Biden appointed judge, you know, rig the trial against.
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A
Well, they would have yelled.
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B
They would have yelled that too. If the judge ruled against Halliday because of the shady indictment that she found.
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C
They said, oh, my God, yell about it anyway today.
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A
He hasn't tweeted yet. I was checking, I was checking a minute ago. No tweets. It is interesting not to, not to open like a whole nother, like, can of worms, but, like, if there's a question of, okay, you know, this is pretty embarrassing for them. Will they learn anything from this? It is interesting that this comes out the same day as the announcement from Pete Hegseth, the Department of War at the Defense Department about, you know, potentially court martialing Mark Kelly over, you know, it's like just the same, the same playbook over and over and over again. I guess if you, if you, if you throw enough of those, you're still.
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B
Well, we have the Adam Schiff one too. Right?
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C
Schiff. And, you know, Ed Martin was sort of flicking at the Schiff thing, being out, hanging out there still in live.
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B
Well, let me ask you about that, Kyle, because there was that story from Ms. Now last week where they were saying that federal prosecutors in Maryland were, or I forget what it was. DOJ officials were looking at whether Bill Polt and Ed Martin had done some illegal activity with respect to the mortgage issues involving Adam Schiff. What, what is, did you get any reporting on that or what's your take on that?
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C
Not a ton of direct reporting, but, you know, Ed Martin has, you know, directly disavowed that. And, you know, there's one of the, you know, Pam Bondi's former chief of staff was out there saying, this is not what's going on here. They're misreading it.
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A
It's.
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C
They were, they were running down different evidence trails for how, you know, to shore up the case that they're building against Schiff. And Ed Martin basically endorsed that and saying, I'm not supposed to comment on cases that are ongoing, but sounds right.
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A
But patriots remain in control.
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C
Right. And so, you know, I, I'm not sure what, you know, if that's just been. But, you know, I, I somewhat doubt that this Justice Department is investigating Ed Martin while he's overseas.
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B
Yeah, that didn't seem right to me at the surface. I was like, wait a second, they're not going to talk.
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C
I mean, there may be legitimate questions about, you know, how they obtain this, some of this information. I think there are and you know, if Democrats ever retake the House, that's going to be one of the top of the agendas is to, you know, seek that and seek things like that out for how those systems were missing.
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B
Kyle, if you, if you have to go do report and just pull your ear and I'll let you go. We can do it subtly or we can do it the normal way. You can just say, I gotta go. I guess the other question I have is about just sort of the broad elements of like the politization of the Justice Department. Like, do we now expect any impact in whether or not they bring a case against Shiff? Who else are they looking into? I guess Kelly is a court marshall thing. But like, I don't see this as them, as them looking and saying, oh, we got to t, you know, hit the brakes, this is too much. We can't afford any more embarrassments. But if I were them, I would maybe rethink my strategy.
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C
I mean, I'm, you know, one of the curious things about the shift case is who's going to bring that one? Because they don't have a similarly. Right appointed. You know, they don't have Lindsay Halligan in Maryland right now.
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B
But all the contemporaneous reporting is that that office is also dubious about the merits of the chart. Right.
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C
And so. And I think Ed Martin is technically a special assistant U.S. attorney in that office. Just. And he's in D.C. too, and a couple other places.
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A
But what can't he do?
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C
Right?
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A
I don't know.
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C
I don't know to what degree he's directing traffic on this or, or overseeing it.
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B
The question I have on these contemporaneous reports about the offices and this would have maybe factored into the Halligan thing. Would that have come into play in a trial?
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C
Right.
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B
Like, would come's attorneys have been like, hey, I want to introduce this article about how every other attorney refused to put their name on this case.
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C
You couldn't really bring in a news article. But they would be what would happen next is discovery. I think if the judge didn't just throw out the case on vindictive prosecution grounds. Just on. Just on what's obvious. I mean, Comey says you don't even need discovery. Just look at what Trump said, look at what played out. That's enough to say this is a vindictive prosecution. If the judge said, I'm not quite there yet, they would say, I need discovery. We need to get into the documents. We need to get actually get material from DOJ to show us how this prosecution came together, he'd be entitled to that. So I think they'd get underneath, you know, the. Get into. Under the surface on it.
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B
And where's cyber in all this? Has he said anything?
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C
Another person, again, dem. Take the house, have him be the first person to come testify. You know, he, I mean, he could be in. Involved or, or become involved in this. If there is a selective prosecution, you know, further discovery on this and further investigating of it, I do suspect there's, you know, it could be a deal. I mean, you would think the inspector general would be looking into stuff like this, too, although they've been very quiet in that office since Trump took over and basically fired a bunch of IGs. These are things that usually would come to light in some, Some forum or another.
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B
All right, last question before I let you go, Andrew, you go. And then I have one more question.
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A
Yeah, I, I just kind of keep coming back to, like, you. Yes, they're going to rant and rave and rage about this, but, like, in some respects, this actually does seem to have been like a political gift. Like, just. I just remember when Comey was first indicted, like, I think it was Greg Sargent at the New Republic had a piece that was like, all right, they did it. And then he was like, licking his chops about all that stuff you were talking about right now with the discovery. I mean, just like, I personally find it difficult to believe that this particular DOJ and these particular people are doing like, a really good job with like, like leaving a plausible deniability paper trail about this sort of thing. And like, if they were to re. Indict, that is some stuff they would have to worry about. If this were to get further along in the process, that stuff would come out. You know what I mean?
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C
Right. That's true. I mean, some of it may, anyway. But you're right, I think, I think they're in a sense dodging a bullet here. And if, you know, if they want to just come away with, hey, look, James Comey got indicted. Some Democratic appointed judges, you know, derailed the case. And, you know, we don't have much hope for the future, so we'll just, we'll just let it go, you know, that might be the cleanest outcome for them or they get to claim some victory.
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A
That's not.
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B
I just disagree. I disagree. I'll get into that after I let Kyle go. But, Kyle, last question for you. Oh, it's just sort of. Sort of paint your most likely picture for how the future of these cases go. Not just Comey. But James, do you imagine they just drop it entirely, like you. You. You suggested. Obviously, with the James one, it's different because the statute of limitations does not pass. So. And. And also, if you can touch on the answer, like, what's the future for Lindsay Halligan? I mean, she can go back to.
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C
The White House or. Or, you know, as I said, she could. They. You know, they could try to reappoint her in some sort of more official and. And valid position and have her.
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B
Do you think? But you think she's done as the interim U.S. attorney?
- [22:43]
C
I think she's done as the interim U.S. attorney. I mean, they can fight it like they are for Haba and for others, too. Yeah, I think some of those other cases are further along, so we may get a ruling that affects stuff like this, you know, the outcome here before this one ever reaches, you know, an appeal court. But, you know, so. So Halligan, you know, if. If she wants to continue, you know, taking. Taking abuse from the judges and. And so she's objecting herself to this kind of scrutiny, she can keep going. And the cases themselves, I. I think if they can find someone, either Halligan again or someone else to prosecute them, I think they'll try again. It's hard to see them rolling over and saying, we're done. Yeah. Homies off the hook. You know, they keep talking about this grand conspiracy case in Florida that. Oh, yeah, I don't know too much about that, but maybe they could find another way to punish these people that. That allows them to let this. This particular one go.
- [23:44]
B
But Will Summer's been writing about that one. It's hanging out there in the ether for Maga. They are very excited about that one. It is.
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C
And I'm not sure if that's all just, you know, this sort of cycle feeding on itself of, you know, this bubble that's going to burst at some point and not. Not turn out to be what they think it is, but nothing.
- [24:01]
B
It just gets bigger. That's what happens. It just grows in size, right? All right, man. Hey, thank you for doing this. You're a busy man. I know that this is a lot to ask. I'm sure you got, like, five more articles you got to write before the day is done, so. All right. Kyle Cheney. Thank you so much, brother. Appreciate it.
- [24:17]
C
Good to be with you, everyone.
- [24:18]
B
Check him out on Politico. Okay, Andrew, you stay with me. I'm gonna just totally disagree with you. I just think this is my theory, okay?
- [24:30]
A
The.
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B
The. The. The base has been so conditioned for some indictments, some bloodlust, some. Someone to be thrown behind bars. Right. And it just keeps not happening for them. And obviously they said they set themselves up for failure, but you can't just be like, ah, the deep state goddess again. Oh, shucks, you know, some judge, you know, Democrat appointed judge goddess. I just don't think that's going to be sufficient. I mean, again, maybe there's no other better outcome, but I just don't think this is a good outcome at all.
- [25:03]
A
Yeah, I don't disagree with you, first of all, on that last point at all. If, if it's a good outcome. I only mean that it's like the least bad political outcome here for them. And just, just to be clear on that. But I also think, like, I don't know, because, because for a long time, for a long time, I would have just thought that it was just something you kind of set your clock to that, that like MAGA out there in the world would, would find whatever outcome happened spinnable on Trump's terms. Right, right. That, like, they would, they would be happy to accept his narrative of, look, you know, it's just the deep state again, yada, yada, yada, and at least like, be willing to see another delay happen in that way. But I don't know, I mean, like, it's, we're at such a weird time right this minute where, like, there are these cracks that are springing up between Trump and his own base in sort of unprecedented ways. We've talked about the Epstein files that, we talked about Marjorie Taylor Greene, like, all these sorts of things. And, and it is not implausible to me to think that, like, this will be more of a problem for Trump than this sort of thing would have been in the past. So I guess in that sense, I, I don't, I don't completely disagree with what you're saying either.
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B
I guess you should put it in a larger context of just, you know, the vindictiveness of the administration and whether they're good at it. So, like, you mentioned the Kelly thing today, but why don't you just sort of go through for the viewers because they might not be caught up what actually is happening with Mark Kelly and the other five Democrats who recorded that video and what Trump, I should say, what the DOD did today.
- [26:32]
A
Yeah, yeah. I imagine people are at least a little familiar with this story because it's been in the news. It's these, these, these, these Democrats in Congress with these national security or intelligence backgrounds who recorded this video last week or the week before. I'm already losing track of my timeline. Bas like direct camera talking to people in the intelligence community, talking to people in the military, basically reiterating what is a basic sort of principle of serving in one of those roles, which is that you have no obligation, no duty to obey unlawful orders, even from people in your chain of command. And in fact, you have an active duty not to obey an order that you know to be unlawful. They specifically made that point. They did not tie it to any particular Trump policies that are going on right now. Obviously, it comes in the context of a lot of controversy around, for instance, the Trump White House authorizing these strikes on these boats off the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean, or these National Guard deployments to US Cities, things like that. But they were pretty clear and pretty careful, I think, not to actively accuse the White House of any specific illegal action of saying don't obey when they say to do this. They were just reiterating the basic principle. But the White House flipped out. I mean, it went absolutely nuts. Trump obviously called for them all to be prosecuted with sedition, to be executed. I mean, he actually said that explicitly. He said, sedition punishable by death, they should all be convicted of that. He retweeted some other guy on Truth Social who was saying, hang him up. That's what George Washington would do. And then people like Stephen Miller who were out there basically saying, these people are fomenting an insurrection. That's what's happening right now. So real heavy rhetoric. And last week, you think that's heavy? Yeah, you know, I mean, as far as medium heavy, at least.
- [28:17]
B
Yeah, I feel like he could have notched it up a few.
- [28:20]
A
Yeah, exactly, exactly. They should be drawn and quartered or something. Or crucified. Yeah, yeah. Hanging, you know, that's a humane. Nice. Humane. No, I don't know.
- [28:29]
C
The.
- [28:30]
A
The other thing Trump said last week was that Pete Hagseth was looking into it. Right. Because, again, some of these people are former military. And so that was the announcement that we got today was.
- [28:39]
B
Was all of them are either former military or used to work in the CIA or something like that.
- [28:43]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [28:44]
B
Okay.
- [28:44]
A
So. So Kelly, obviously former U.S. navy captain, the DOD, or Dow, I guess, if you want to use the Department of Defense, slash War.
- [28:54]
B
The Department of Defense.
- [28:55]
A
The Defense Department announced that they had opened an investigation, a military investigation, into whether what Kelly had done constituted by. Just. Just by releasing that video, had constituted, like, criminal. A criminal attempt to, like, foment discord or. Or lower morale inside the US Armed Forces, essentially. And they basically said, that's a crime. I'm not an expert on this stuff. I looked into it very briefly. It's a crime that's punishable by up to 10 years in prison if he's convicted of it. So that's what's going on. Yeah.
- [29:24]
B
And then they announced, yeah, they're going to do court martial proceedings. I will just say Reuben Gallego, who is Marelli's colleague in the Senate from Arizona, has a tweet in response to their statement saying, you and your investigation.
- [29:39]
A
Yeah, there you go. That's sounds a little more like Geigo. I mean, that's. That's one of the amazing things about this is it's like, it just seems like maybe I'm wrong, but it really seems like this is a really terrible fight for the administration. Be picking in a bunch of different ways.
- [29:51]
B
Okay, so now that gets me back to why. Because this is the whole. This is a live stream about the Comey news. But the reason I brought it up is they pick bad fights or they pick unwinnable fights. Like, they are just picking these fights time and again where they're gonna lose or if they win, it's just by like a 1% chance of winning. And I get it, because they have a lust for, you know, partisan warfare and for winning headlines and for satisfying the base because they made all these promises to the base, but, boy, it's like they are just. They're setting themselves up for failure time and again. And that's what happened here. It's this case against Comey. You talk to any lawyer, they looked at it and they laughed at it. They thought it was ridiculous on the merits. Now it's not dismissed on the merits, is dismissed on. I don't even want to say technicality because it was about an appointment for this U.S. attorney post, but I just feel like an administration that was more, I don't know, professional, sophisticated, whatever word you want to use would recognize that these are fights you cannot win. And you have to find different off ramps.
- [31:03]
A
Yeah.
- [31:03]
B
And they're going to end up elevating people that they want to, you know, suppress. Like, Markel is going to raise millions of dollars off of this. Like, yeah, James Comey. James Comey was living a life where he was moving shells around a beach. And like, what do we do? This guy ended up becoming like, you know, he. He got a renewed lease.
- [31:23]
A
Yeah. All it's going to do for Comey is rehabilitate his sort of resistance. Resistance, Craig.
- [31:29]
B
No constituency prior to this, they Gave this guy a second act.
- [31:32]
A
No, I. So, I mean, I keep using the phrase high on their own supply about all these.
- [31:36]
B
It's true, though.
- [31:37]
A
I just, I really do think it's true. I mean, like, they, they, the people who matter, the decision makers here, Trump and Stephen Miller and these other like, few guys in the actual, like, chain of making things happen here, they just, they have these, they have like a gas mask on and it's hooked up to like the exhaust pipe of like right wing social media. Right. I mean, like, it really is like, like, they, they. It'd be one thing. There's a political side and a like execution side here. And I just think they lose on both sides here. Like, I think it's crazy that the President is out here like, tweeting that these lawmakers should be put to death because of this. Like, very straightforward.
- [32:14]
B
And like, the White House clarified. The White House clarified. He did not want.
- [32:18]
A
Yes, Donald Trump. Carolyn Levitt. Donald Trump does not want to see any of these people put to death. Yeah, whatever. He tweeted it. Okay, sorry. We didn't make him tweet it. We were a little surprised he tweeted it, but he did tweet it. So, like, that's crazy. That does not. The median voter is not won over by that, even as a political messaging matter. But then to take it from a political messaging matter where like, you can say anything and like, maybe it's not a winning issue, but like, what, what are you going to do? It's just, you said it and then it'll pull one way or another. But not only that, then they actually try to make it happen procedurally in this way that there's not a chance he will be like, subjected to these, like the, like an actual court martial penalty and lose. And like, I mean, lose like among a military jury or whatever. I mean, come on. There's just. No, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. And if it does happen, people can own, but it's not gonna happen. There's a 0.001% chance that it will happen. How about that? We'll say that. I think. Zero. I don't think it'll happen.
- [33:11]
B
You just, you've just manifested it into happening. All right, look, I don't have much more to add on the Comey thing. It was an interesting development. I'm very curious to see how the administration responds to it. I think that's the real tell. Like, we know how comey's going to respond. We know How Letitia James is responding. She put out a statement already. I can grab it quickly now. I can't get it in time. What's really going to be interesting is how does this White House respond? And from all we know, they're just going to double down. I mean, they'll just find a way to try to get the case brought back, but we'll see. Any, any last thoughts before we let you go? Also, can you explain why you're so well dressed? I think people are kind of curious.
- [33:51]
A
Oh, I'm just doing CNN in like an hour, unless they bump me because there's so much news. This news was not all there when I got scheduled for cnn, so we'll see. Maybe I put on the time for nothing, but. But I don't know, like, the other element for that, for, like, trying to find additional avenues is like, there actually aren't all that many people who are like, meet all the criteria here. Like, the fact that Lindsey Halligan was the person who was appointed even though she had zero prosecutorial experience, anything like that. Like, Trump has kind of run through his list of, like, qualified lawyers who he trusts to be just men for him. It's like, you know, that can't be that.
- [34:26]
B
There's got to be somebody down there.
- [34:28]
A
But that's what I'm just saying, like, I mean, your insurance attorney who, like, helped you with some, like, random stuff, like, that's the, that's, that's your attack dog to go get James Comey. And it's because Bondi's got a job, Cash Patel's got a job, you know, Matt Gates. You don't think you can get in there and like, all these sorts of things. And it's just like they're, they are kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel of their actual talent pool in some respects here. In some respects, there are a lot. I mean, if, if they have, if they ever need guys to, like, make social media videos for them or like, post on their behalf, stuff like that, march in the streets, sack the Capitol, all kinds of people, like, will step up and do those things. But as far as, like, actually, you know, staffing out these different U.S. attorney's offices with people who have absolutely no qualms about just doing whatever the president wants and have the law degree and, you know, are bar certified and everything, that's not necessarily an incredibly deep well of people on deck.
- [35:17]
B
No, absolutely right. All right, buddy. I know you got to do a lot of prep work for cnn.
- [35:23]
A
This kind of was that. I think it's all the same stuff. Oh hair making my face will be my face will be transformed by the next time you see me.
- [35:30]
B
Maybe you can get one of these fly hats.
- [35:32]
A
That is a cool hat. I got some of the other ones. I got some of the I don't have them around me but go to the bullwork.com get our merch.
- [35:38]
B
Yeah, get our merch.
- [35:39]
A
It's actually cool. Look at Sam. Look how good he looks.
- [35:43]
B
A belated thank you again to Kyle Chaney who joined us. Kyle's great. You guys gotta follow him if you don't on Twitter also at Politico he's fant take always a pleasure when he joins us. Andrew Egger sign up for his newsletter Morning Shots where he's going to be covering stuff like this. Sign up for our YouTube feed where you get stuff like this all the time. And until our next big breaking news, we'll talk to you soon. Later.