A (4:03)

Yeah, this is just. This indictment is really the vehicle for that bigger issue. Much like Jimmy Kimmel said himself, look, it's not about me. It's not about my show. It's not about what I'm gonna say tonight. It's just about the bigger conversation of free speech. And good news today as we record this. Both Sinclair and nexstar have caved and will stop preempting the Jimmy Kimmel show, supposedly from pressure from Disney and abc. We'll see. But that was the bigger picture and he sort of understood that. And so I know I've talked to you quite a bit offline this week as we've been watching all of this unfold. And I just want to say thank you. First of all, I'm sorry for everything that you're having to go through with all of this being drudged up again. But I'm also thankful that because I was like, how are we going to report this on, on Unjustified? You're going to be reading a bunch of stuff about you. And so I wanted to, you know, talk to you about that. And I just want to thank you for, you know, being willing to, to talk about it here.

B (5:11)

Yeah, for sure. I've been getting a lot of questions about that. I haven't said anything so far publicly yet about my thoughts about the indictment or this investigation or the, the fact that so many people on television seem to be trying to connect me to it in some way. But yeah, I hope hopefully we can sort through a little bit of that here today. And, and as we always try to do on this podcast, you know, really give People the benefit of the best information that we have.

A (5:39)

Yeah. And I don't think I need to give the full disclosure disclaimer that Andy McCabe, who's the CO host of this podcast, is also Andy McCabe, who has been talked about quite a bit this week leading up to that. But let's talk about the indictment. But first, we should give a little background. Right. As we know, about a week ago, Trump fired, well, forced the resignation of the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia named Eric Siebert, and replaced him with his personal lawyer, insurance attorney, who's never prosecuted a single case in her life, Lindsey Halligan. Now, Halligan is the lawyer who filed the special master disaster. That's what I'm calling it. It just happens to rhyme in the classified documents case in 2022, which she lost bigly, you know, to. To put a fine point on it and quickly as well. It only took a couple, three months for. For that to be a loser of a case. She's also the person Trump put in charge of whitewashing the Smithsonian because the truth about slavery is too disparaging to the United States of America, apparently.

B (6:43)

Yeah, apparently so. The installation of Halligan came with a lot of social media posts from the president, including on September 20, a post that stated, and was apparently directed specifically to Pam Bondi, because it begins, Pam Colon. I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that essentially, same old story as last time. All talk, no action, nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam Shifty, Schiff and Letitia? They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. He goes on to say, we can't delay any longer. It's killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice and indicted me five times over nothing. Justice must be served now. President DJT Hmm.

A (7:34)

And that, I think, was supposed to be a direct message to Pam Bondi.

B (7:38)

Yeah.

A (7:38)

But became a post, public post on his true social.

B (7:43)

Whoops.

A (7:44)

Yeah, there's a lot in there that really imperils this case.

B (7:48)

Totally. It's, you know. Okay. It's the latest chapter in the story of people in this administration, including its leader, not being super great about message discipline and keeping the right messages in the right channels. But nevertheless, Katherine Falders at ABC reported Wednesday that the Justice Department was going to seek an indictment of Jim Comey and that earlier in the week, prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia presented Lindsey Halligan with a detailed memo recommending that she decline to bring perjury and obstruction charges against Comey.

A (8:24)

Now, That's a significant little piece of evidence right there. And I want to ask you about that, Andy, because it reminds me of a special little Bill Barr memo that was whipped up by the pay DAG and Office of Legal Counsel that said we don't recommend charges against Donald Trump for obstruction in the Mueller investigation.

B (8:44)

Yeah.

A (8:45)

And that they tried to keep that memo a secret. They said it was work product privilege. They said it was deliberative process privilege. Judge. I think it was Beryl Howell or Amy Berman Jackson, one of the two, said, no B.S. this is you. This is not deliberative process. You didn't have any time to deliberate because you put this memo out like six seconds after you received the full Mueller report, which is like 600, 500 pages. And so we got to see most of that memo and presumably that declination memo, because they said Bill Barr said this is an obstruction of justice, what Mueller found. And even if Trump weren't the sitting president, because you can't indict a sitting president, we still wouldn't recommend charges. We would recommend against prosecuting obstruction of justice. And that declination memo is probably what stopped Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice under Joe Biden from seeking obstruction of justice charges because you've got this kind of get out of jail free card. So talk about the importance of this memo presented to Lindsey Halligan saying we. There's not even probable cause here.

B (9:53)

Yeah. So to back up just a half step, let's remember that in the week prior to. Is it Eric Siebert? Yeah. Prior. The U.S. attorney for Eastern District Virginia, it became clear all the news reporting was indicating that he did not support going forward with these indictments because he didn't think the case was there. And that's, of course, what precipitated his firing. So now in the wake of his termination, now you're getting this new lawyer, Halligan, who literally has probably never even been inside a U.S. attorney's office. She's also not. Other than her three appearances as Trump's personal attorney, that's the entirety of the number of times she's been in federal court. She's never been a defense attorney. So with her coming in, it sounds like what happened is the career professionals got together and wrote this memo laying out exactly why they think the case was probably insufficient to get a grand jury to indict it. And if they did indict it, wouldn't. They would not be able to prove it at trial. So you have that memo written on the record, and that's A problem. Right. For this.

A (11:08)

It's a discoverable document.

B (11:09)

It could be. I mean, they would have to fight the deliberative thing again and know where that's going to come out.

A (11:15)

Privileged, right?

B (11:16)

Yeah, but it's. It's not good. You could also try to subpoena some of those people to come in and testify again. You'd face the same sort of privilege battles and things. But so now, in addition to not knowing what she's doing and having secured this indictment, like, by happenstance almost, she's also probably sitting on a revolution in that office. I'm not going to be surprised if people, more people assigned to that office, start walking out the door and refusing essentially to serve under her leadership. So this could have really very broad impact on how they do business in the Eastern District of Virginia.

A (11:56)

Yeah, and we're going to talk about this in a little bit. But, you know, she's the only one on. She's the only signatory on this indictment. Yeah, she's so far the only lawyer that's lodged for an appearance. She's the one who personally presented the case to the grand jury, which is also kind of unheard of. And no other lawyers, according to Adam Klassfeld at All Rise News, have joined this case to argue it in court. And I am wondering who. What career prosecutor would want to even bother. Like, they're going to have to probably bring, I don't know, bring ML Bovey.

B (12:34)

Back from, you know, come on, judge.

A (12:40)

Like, it's just. It's a horrible, terrible, no good case. And I think they're gonna be hard pressed to find a career prosecutor professional that will ethically be willing to even argue it in court.

B (12:51)

She may not have even asked anyone yet. She may not know she can tell them to. I mean, she's never run a U.S. attorney's office before, so we don't know that. But it's possible. She did ask and some people said, no, thank you very much. Um, she had to get over this hurdle because, of course, the. The statute of limitations on charging Comey with anything Based on his September 20, 2020 Senate testimony expires next Tuesday. So my guess is she probably was like, well, I'll figure this out later, but let me just get in there and get this indictment. But you're right, at some point, she's going to have to assign a trial attorney to this thing. Unless she's going to try her first case against the former Director of the FBI in front of the entire world.

A (13:38)

Yeah, man, I wish this would be televised.

B (13:40)

Though facing down some of the best former prosecutor attorneys in the country. I don't know who's representing Director Comey, but I would guess.

A (13:51)

Oh, it's Fitzgerald.

B (13:52)

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Fitzgerald. And probably Dave Kelly, Scooter Libby guy.

A (13:59)

Right.

B (13:59)

These are Pat Fitzgerald and. And Dave Kelly, who I know from being an agent working with them in the Southern District when they were there. These guys are as good as it gets in federal criminal court. So, yeah, she's going to have her hands full, especially if she can't find anyone in her office to get on board.

A (14:19)

Yeah, so true. All right, we're going to go over the indictment and we're going to talk about who maybe person one, person two, and person three are. But we have to take a quick break, so stick around. We'll be right. Hey, everybody, it's Allison. You know those nights when sleep just won't come? Your mind won't stop spinning and no matter what you do, you can't fall asleep. And then the next day feels like a slog. Like you're. You've got no energy and no patience, no focus. Well, that's where CBD from CB Distillery makes a huge difference. I love their sleep gummies and their, ah, gummies. They're incredible. But it's also not, you know, just about sleep. CB Distillery has products that work with your body to help reduce stress and ease pain after exercise and support better mood and focus. And everything is made with clean, high quality ingredients. No fillers, no shortcuts, just premium CBD that does what it promises. That is why more than 2 million people trust CB Distillery for daily relief. And I want to thank CB Distillery for sponsoring this episode. You can get 25% off your entire purchase@cbdistillery.com and use promo code unjust. So if you're ready for better sleep, less stress, and feeling good in your own skin again, try CBD from CB Distillery. For me, the standout is the relief balm after workouts. You know, I've got perimenopause. My joints hurt, my muscles get sore faster, and so after a long day at my desk, even my muscles feel tight and sore. But rubbing in the balm brings steady comfort without the heavy medicinal smell I was expecting. It's subtle, feels good on the skin, and it actually works. And this alone has made it part of my daily routine. It's just incredible. Also, I like that I can use it knowing that it's made responsibly with quality and consistency. So it's not a quick fix. It's real support I can count on. And honestly, just having the option instead of reaching for painkillers has been a huge win. And for a limited time you can save 25% on your entire purchase. Just visit CBDistillery.com, use promo code UNJUST. That's CBDistillery.com and promo code UNJUST. Visit CBDistillery.com Specific product availability depends on individual state regulations Foreign hey everybody, welcome back. All right, so we got the news of the indictment on Thursday. Everything moved really quickly. Most of this happened since our last episode aired. So we got news of the indictment on Thursday and I want to go over it because a lot of folks are running with a narrative that doesn't. I can't make it fit the facts, nor can anybody I've spoken to. But it's easy to sow confusion with such a scant one page fact free indictment. We're used to covering indictments that are speaking indictments, multiple pages that tell a full story. Right. And are clear about the charges that are brought against people. And that's not what this is. So let's start with the indictment itself. Lindsay Halligan filed two signed documents. One has three counts and one has just two counts. Count one was returned no bill, which means the grand jury didn't find probable cause.

B (17:23)

The Washington Post reported Lindsey Halligan and First Assistant U.S. attorney Maggie Cleary. And as an aside, I understand that Maggie Cleary is like the person she brought with her to the office. They were in the Alexandria courtroom when the indictment was delivered to US Magistrate Judge Lindsey R. Vala on Thursday evening. Comey's son in law, Troy A. Edwards Jr. Who had prosecuted and supervised national security cases, was seated in the front row. The grand jury foreperson told Vala that the panel had rejected one of the three counts in the originally submitted indictment. Prosecutors then presented a revised indictment, the foreperson said, containing only the two counts that the grand jury had agreed on and with which Comey was eventually charged with. The judge received both indictments Thursday evening and noted that she was puzzled by the outcome. Quote, this has never happened before. I've been handed two documents with a discrepancy, vala said. I'm a little confused why I was handed two things that were inconsistent.

A (18:30)

So I think this is just right off the bat showing Lindsey Halligan's inexperience, Right?

B (18:38)

Yeah.

A (18:38)

Now, Lindsey Halligan said at the lectern she had not seen the first indictment that was rejected. But Judge Vala noted Halligan appeared to have signed that document. But let's take a look at these three counts. So off the bat, we're, you know, two left feet here.

B (18:52)

Yeah.

A (18:54)

Here is the count that didn't make muster. It says, On September 30, 2020, in the Eastern District of Virginia, James Comey did willfully and knowingly make a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement by falsely stating to a US Senator during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that he, James B. Comey Jr. Did not remember being taught of person one's, who I think is Hillary Clinton, being taught of person one's approval of a plan concerning person two, who I think is Donald Trump and the 2016 US presidential election. That statement and representation was false because James B. Comey knew then and there that he had in fact been provided information regarding Hillary Clinton or Person 1's approval of a plan concerning Donald Trump or Person 2 and the 2016 US presidential election. Now, to me, Andy, that's about that Durham annex that was just recently released by Tulsi Gabbard, which included some fabricated emails showing that Hillary Clinton approved a plan to tie Donald Trump to Russia to interfere in the 2016 election. Durham found that those emails were likely fabricated by Russian intelligence and brought no charges in that matter.

B (20:12)

That's possible, although I think a simpler alternative is more likely, and here's why. And this again, it's not something I've discussed before, but because they have released and declassified so many documents about the 26, 2016 Russia investigation and the leaked cases, all that stuff, I have a little bit more freedom now. So in, In September of 2020, John Ratcliffe, who was serving as DNI, or acting DNI at the time, he declassified a very previously very highly classified memorandum that had been sent from the CIA to the FBI. And on the two line were the names James Comey, Director James Comey and Peter Strzok. And Radcliffe declassified it and, and wrote a letter summarizing it and handed those things over to Congress. So these things are out there in the, the Internet. Now, Jim testified in his testimony to the Senate on September 30, 2020, that he had not seen that memo before. The memo is very short and it basically says that the CIA kind of, they have a source that indicates the CIA, the source report of the CIA that this, that the Democratic, I guess, committee, Hillary Clinton had approved some plan to try to make Donald Trump look like he was close to Vladimir Putin because that would help them in the election. So what's important here is Jim said his testimony that he had not never seen that before or wasn't aware of it. And that's what this would be count, I believe is based on that simple statement, not necessarily the whole mishigos with Durham Republic report and all that stuff is a little bit more complicated and might not be related to that CIA.

A (22:06)

Well, in the. That particular declassification from Ratcliffe about that plan that was. And those emails that Ratcliffe himself determined were probably mis or disinformation is in the duramatics. That's that. That's what I meant by that.

B (22:19)

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

A (22:20)

That not the whole rest of the Durham thing.

B (22:22)

Right.

A (22:23)

Just that re released thing that Tulsi Gabbard put out to say, look, oh my gosh, yeah, Jim Comey and he knew about this and Hillary Clinton's plan when we know and you know and I know and everybody else now knows that way back in, you know, 20, what was it where he released that, where Ratcliffe released that.

B (22:43)

20. 20.

A (22:44)

20. 2020. And so that particular count now of Jim Comey saying he wasn't aware no one had taught him about the Hillary Clinton plan to tie Trump to Russia. The, the grand jury said, no, we're not going to indict on that.

B (23:04)

Right.

A (23:06)

Yeah.

B (23:06)

Which for many reasons are not even worth going into because they didn't get indicted on it. So there's. That's the one that failed, right? The one that, that they got over the threshold. One of the two was the false statement count. And that count reads like this. On or about September 30, 2020, in the Eastern District of Virginia, the defendant, James Comey, did willfully and knowingly make a material false, fictitious and fraudulent statement to a U.S. senator during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that he, James Comey, had not, quote, authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation concerning Person one. That statement was false because as James Comey then and there knew, he in fact had authorized Person 3 to serve as an anonymous source and news reports regarding an FBI investigation concerning person one. Now, person one would be this, because these were originally in the same document. Person one would be the same person has to be so that the person referred to as Person one in this count is Hillary Clinton. The question is, who is Person three?

A (24:20)

Well, everyone in the world save five people think, think that that might be you. And you know, I just want to go on record here. I looked through the September 30, 2020 testimony and there's no place where Jim Comey testifies that he did not authorize someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports. He never said that. Ted Cruz asked him about something he said in 2017, right, where he said he never authorized anybody to leak or talk to, you know, authorize anyone to speak to the press.

B (25:04)

Right.

A (25:05)

And Comey didn't say, I've never authorized anyone to speak to the press at the FBI. He just said, I stand by my testimony in 2017, and I'm not gonna characterize Andy McCabe's testimony because that's when Ted Cruz brought you up. So let's talk about that.

B (25:21)

Yeah, so Ted Cruz is like, well, McCabe says, you know, he went before McCabe went out and leaked to the Wall Street Journal in October of 2016. He says that he, he, you knew about it and he told you and you said you didn't know about it. He never told you. So one of you is lying. It was one of these classic, like, one of you is a liar. Who is it? And of course, Jim responded as you indicated, saying that he wasn't going to characterize it from my testimony. He just stood with, firm with what he said back in 2017. So this is a very hard thing to figure out just by looking at the indictment because as you've now heard, there's no facts in there. There's no allegation of who is what or who what happened here. What they have to do to prosecute Jim is they cannot bring this case as a leak case because for a lot of reasons, not the least of which it'd be way out of the statute of limitation. So the only way that they can charge him today for something is because the testimony he gave in, in 2020 is within the five year statute of limitations. But they still need to claim, as a factual matter in this case, they're going to need to prove what the underlying facts were that made his, his testimony in 2020 false. So they would have to basically go back to this whole story of he and I and who said what and did what in October of 2016. The problem is I never, I never said to him or anyone else, including the IG or any place else that asked that James Comey authorized me to share information with the Wall Street Journal. I didn't have to because I had the authority to authorize it myself at that time. And I don't know what their policy is now, but the FBI policy was that there were only two people in the organization who could authorize a disclosure to the press. It was the director and the deputy. And this was something that I did very routinely in my job. I worked with my Office of Director or Assistant Director of Public Affairs, Mike Corton, every day, figuring, trying to answer questions that were coming in from the press and everything else. So in this occasion, I did authorize Mike to talk to the Wall Street Journal about a particular conversation that I had had with someone at doj. And that was the kind of the meat of the controversy that ensued. But I never asked Jim for his disclosure. However, I have maintained since this became a thing that Jim knew that I was engaging with him because I told Jim about it. Jim knew about it from an email that I had sent him in the days leading up to this conversation because it was a conversation that took place over a course of several days, a couple of iterations between Mike Corton and this reporter. So he knew it was going on. I talked to Jim Comey the day the conversation really peaked around the issue that is kind of the center of this thing. And then, of course, we talked about it after the fact. Now, Jim has a different recollection of that than I do. And that's where the conflict, if you really want to say that, it's not really a conflict, but that's where the difference.

A (28:36)

Inconsistency.

B (28:37)

Yeah, the inconsistency between us is. I'm very confident in my recollection and the things I've said. I guess he is as well. That is what it is. But the fact is, like, you can never. You could never base a successful one, that 1001, which is the charge here, false statement case, on that sort of an inconsistency. He has his recollection. That doesn't mean that he was intentional. Even if he's wrong, which I believe he is, doesn't mean he ever intentionally and materially lied about that to Congress or anyone else. And the same holds true for me. So. And the final reason why I do not believe that this count has anything to do with that issue between Jim and I is because no one in the Justice Department or the FBI who's working on this case has contacted me in any way. I have not been interviewed. And so, you know, I'm really. I would. It seems like I would be an essential fact witness if this was the narrative you were basing the charge on. And they have not talk to me about that. So, you know, in a normal world, and I get it, we're not there anymore. But in a normal world, there's no way a prosecutor would bring a charge like this against a high profile person under these circumstances and not having inter at least interviewed somebody who could likely would likely be an important fact witness.

A (30:07)

Yeah. Especially to back up the fact that they need to prove that he's lying, that Comey is lying. Because this is something a bunch of people and I have been trying to figure out is like, well, if he lied and it's about the McCabe thing, you would have to bring McCabe in as a witness if you know. So it doesn't seem like person three could be you. And there are other factors too. Even if you didn't have, you know, conflicting statements or you go by Jim Comey statement that he didn't, you know, learn this from you until the day after the article came out, which is kind of what's in the doji report from Mike Horowitz, who is one of only two remaining inspectors general after the mass firings. The favorite, apparently, who is now at the Federal Reserve, probably trying to find dirt on Jerome Powell and Lisa Cook. But that's a story for another time.

B (31:08)

Wearing a disguise to work every day to stay out of the this stuff, I'm sure.

A (31:12)

My name is Jel Morowitz. You don't know me. So talk a little bit about what the because honestly, even though there may be discrepancies in the inspector general report, because I want to ask you about that, because it's not what you say. The inspector general report disproves the entire indictment. If you're person three, that's.

B (31:35)

That's the next crazy thing about this. Right. So. And if you go back to that IG report, which I do not recommend, one of the worst things I've ever read in my life, but if you do go back to it, you'll see that basically what the. I'm not quoting here, but the general gist of what the IG did in their effort to find things to fire me for was they said we talked to McCabe, McCabe said X, Y and Z. We talked to Comey and Comey had a different recollection. We believe Comey, therefore McCabe lied. That's the theory. And if and by the way, that alleged misrepresentation, which was not true, it wasn't true then and it's not true now, regardless of what you charge Jim Comey with. That was the core of the entire report because everything else they then accused me of doing was essentially a cover up of that alleged misrepresentation to my boss. That never happened. So having concluded that I was the one who lacked candor, if I am person three. That means DOJ is basically going to go into court and say some version of, whoops, it was the other guy who was lying back in 2016 or 2017 when he was interviewed by the IG. It would mean they'd have to take the exact opposite position on this whole historical nonsense. And while. Listen, I would love to see that on some level, I'd love to see DOJ have to eat their words over Michael Horowitz. Flawed, unfair and materially false report. I would love to see that. But I don't believe we're gonna see that. Because when you add all this stuff up, the idea that I am person 3 does not make really any sense.

A (33:31)

No, it doesn't. And in fact, they used that materially wrong inspector general report to try to secure, rather embarrassingly, an indictment against you for the same false statements. And the grand jury refused. Well, we think one, maybe multiple grand juries failed to return an indictment. I don't think that that's actually been ever publicly confirmed that there was a no bill.

B (33:59)

They definitely failed to return one. This we know, cuz I've never been indicted. But the question is, did they actually know true bills? Did they vote it down? Or did the prosecutors just get a sense that they weren't gonna vote for it so they just walked away, didn't take it?

A (34:14)

Right.

B (34:14)

That does happen at times. It's very, very rare. Cause it still goes in the category of you failed to get the indictment in the case that you tried. But yeah, I mean that's what ended up happening there.

A (34:25)

And they also used that to wrongfully terminate you. Yes, four hours before your retirement, but they calculated wrong and you went to court and won. So that just falls apart. So let's talk about who else person three could be. The other option here is Dan Richmond and here's what Anna Bauer writes for Lawfare. Richman, a law professor and close friend of Comey's, did some media outreach work on Comey's behalf, as well as advising him on encryption and other matters. He famously was the person who disclosed the contents of Comey's memos about the loyalty oath dinner with Trump to the New York Times, which Comey testified about and said he did. And his role as an informal non governmental spokesman for Comey came up at some length in a separate leak investigation known as Arctic Haze, documents about which the FBI has also dumped in Grassley's lap and thus made public in the right wing press.

B (35:25)

She continues, one reason to think that the current case focuses on the Richmond Matters is that Richmond has actually had a recent interview with prosecutors.

A (35:35)

Aha.

B (35:35)

Yeah, right. Reports to the New York Times. Prosecutors from Mr. Siebert's office subpoenaed Daniel C. Richmond, a Columbia law professor and close friend and advisor to Mr. Comey, in connection with an investigation into whether the former director had lied about whether he authorized Mr. Richmond to leak information to the news media. According to people familiar with the situation, Documents released by the FBI in August showed that investigators had examined possible disclosures of classified information to the New York Times. Mr. Richmond's statements to prosecutors were not helpful in their efforts to build a case against Mr. Comey, according to two people familiar with the matter.

A (36:17)

So Anna Bauer continues for Lawfare. It's easy to see, looking at the Arctic Hayes documents, why a conversation with him. Richmond would not have been helpful in building a case against Comey. Between redactions. The declassified documents contain such sentences as, quote, although Richmond later told the interviewing agents, Comey never asked him to talk to the media. And another statement that says, quote, richmond claimed Comey never asked him to talk to the media, unquote. And quote, the investigation has not yielded sufficient evidence to criminally charge any person, including Comey or Richmond, with making false statements or with the substantive offenses under investigation. And finally, quote, investigative efforts have failed to identify the source or sources of the unauthorized public disclosure. That's in the Arctic free. Or is it? Freeze Arctic. Arctic Haze.

B (37:07)

Freeze Arctic Haze.

A (37:09)

Yeah. Documents. So Richmond certainly talked to the press on Comey's behalf, though. But the FBI never found that he had been a source for the disclosure at issue in Arctic Haze. And critically, for Comey's testimony, it never found that Comey had asked him or authorized him to be a source for the story, much less to do so anonymously. Richman was often quoted by name in stories about the FBI and Comey because a long time ago, Richmond had a special job at the doj.

B (37:43)

He did. Yeah. So Dan Richmond and Jim Comey were good friends from the time they both worked as line prosecutors in the Southern District, and they've maintained friendship over the years. Richmond for, I think, was, or maybe still is, a law professor at Columbia. So early on in Jim's term as director, Richmond was brought on as kind of an advisor to the director. So to do that without, like, quitting your private sector job entirely, you can do this thing called a special government employee sge. It's an official status that you're hired for some nominal amount of money. The money's not really the important thing, but it then enables you to get access to information. You can get a security clearance and all that kind of stuff, and then you can, you know, perform in whatever function you've been hired for. Another recent special government employee, Elon Musk, had the same sort of status for Donald Trump. So, anyway, that's where Richmond comes from. So just a little bit of background about Arctic haze. So in 2017, there were so many leaks that were going on. In 2017, a bunch of them got opened as leak investigations, and they were handled mostly by the Washington field office, but a couple of them were handled by one by Baltimore, I think, and I don't know, might have been one or two somewhere else. These were handled by, like, a small group of investigators who work directly with prosecutors in the D.C. u.S. Attorney's office. I had nothing to do with them. Because here's a little. A little more inside baseball. When you open a leak case, one of the first things you do as the investigator is you define what's known as the pool of subjects. And that is simply you look at the information that has appeared in the press, and then you go backwards and you figure out how many FBI employees had access to that information, how many sets of eyeballs saw it, and everyone that ends up on that list is in the pool of suspects. So Jim and I had access to all this stuff. So we were likely in that pool in probably every one of these cases because, you know, we had access to all that information. So it was not something I knew about at the time. I've only learned about the details of these cases since it's been released to Grassley's office. It's like I'm reading this stuff and finding out what was going on around me. Arctic Haze was opened based on, I think, four or five separate articles that appeared in the press and all had information about the Russia case. And so I think that the fact that the case was then closed in 2020, and you can read the LHM, the closing LHM is right there in these released documents. They go through. Here's what we did. Here's the investigative steps we took. Okay? Some of it's redacted, you know, to protect sources and methods, but some of it you can see. And they ultimately concluded, you know, they looked at Dan Richmond, they didn't charge him then they looked at Jim Comey. They didn't charge him with anything then. So the idea, like, how is this now going to become the nugget? The basis for your entire prosecution of Jim Comey is something that was investigated for three years, which the investigators couldn't come up with a single thing to ask to be charged. Like, good luck with that.

A (41:08)

Yeah. And since the, the five years ago testimony, the September 30, 2020 testimony that back and forth with Ted Cruz was specifically about your situation with the Wall Street Journal, and he was referring back to 2017 testimony, which had nothing to do with that. I think the Chuck Grass or the Grassley question was about just in general, have you ever authorized a leak, somebody at the FBI, to leak to the press? If that was the lie back in 2017, that's way beyond the statute of limitations. And just connecting it through Ted Cruz's questioning from 2020 to get it into the five year statute of limitations will also fall apart.

B (41:58)

It's a double bank shot. Right. It really looks crazy. I do think that Grassley's question was more general, was more broad. So these other leak cases could potentially, you know, if they involved, you know, the allegation would be, oh, you authorize Richmond or someone else, some lawyer, whatever, to talk to the media on your behalf that could, you could, you could shoehorn it in there. But yeah, you're right that you can't base it exclusively off of his statement to Grassley because it was out of the statute. So. Yeah.

A (42:31)

And you can't somehow revive it from the dead because Ted Cruz asked you about it and you confirmed it in 2020.

B (42:38)

Right.

A (42:40)

That makes no sense. And, you know, I know Jim Comey has excellent lawyers. I expect to see vindictive and selective prosecution motions to dismiss. But I also suspect we'll see something that Donald Trump tried a million times with Jack Smith to say that the charges weren't clear and enumerated and explained. Right. Because you have to have clear charges and you have to understand what you're being charged with so that you can prepare a defense. And. But here we are spending 45 minutes trying to figure out what this charge is, and most people are having a real hard time with it. So this, to me, is an incomplete charge. And you could have this thrown out on that.

B (43:22)

There's all kinds of ways it could get thrown out before going really anywhere. They will definitely file vindictive and selective prosecution motions. And in the words of Judge Shira Shinlin on CNN last night, she's like, I've never seen a better case for it. Because you've got the President's public statements demanding that the guy be charged. Like that is that in and of itself gets you there. So those are, those are good. What they will also say is that they will request that the judge go back and review the actual evidence that was submitted to the grand jury and make a determination as to whether there was enough evidence to merit this probable cause finding. And the, and it is possible, since the prior U.S. attorney evaluated that evidence days before and says it wasn't enough to bring it to a grand jury, it's very possible that a judge could come to the same conclusion and that would dismiss the indictment outright, you know, literally at its first step. So this is not, this is far from over. We're going to be talking about this a lot. And, and Jim has very good counsel and, you know, he's a smart guy, knows he knows his way around a courtroom at a prosecution as well. So, yeah, I, I think we'll also.

A (44:42)

See a motion for a bill of particulars or a request for a bill of particular. Like, can you please explain what you're talking about?

B (44:47)

What are we defending against here? Exactly.

A (44:49)

But.

B (44:52)

Best I can do is point you to their, their 266 page FOIA release that talks about eight different cases. I mean, like, that's not enough.

A (45:03)

Can you at least give us a hint as to who, what, where person three is? Right. It's an incomplete charging document from what we are used to seeing from the Department of Justice. Comey's video statement, I thought was well said. And again, I want to be clear, I am not a fan of the man. Okay. But to separate this out and it's okay to decry what the Justice Department is doing here, regardless of your feelings of Jim Comey. Same with John Bolton. We'll talk about that next week. I'm sure they're gonna try to bring an indictment against John Bolton for retention of classified materials. Again, not a fan. But weaponization of the Department of Justice is bad no matter who it's against.

B (45:50)

Yeah. And it's so discouraging. Like, you hear, you know, there's a lot of people out there who feel like, well, you know, the Democrats did it to Trump, so now it's okay that they're doing it to, like, no, it doesn't work that way. Every case is gonn got to stand on its own. It's got to pass the thresholds of probable cause or beyond a reasonable doubt should be applied, that the law should be applied the same way to the individual facts. But here's what I will say. Even if, even if you believe that the Biden administration weaponized the government against Donald Trump, if you believe that, and I don't agree with that, but if you believe it, then you're, you're Your desire now should be to not do that.

A (46:33)

Right.

B (46:33)

It should be to return to the standards of independence and integrity. Like, that's what, that's the solution. When you think the government has been weaponized, bring it back to the center where it's supposed to live. Don't throw it 180 degrees to the right and reap your vengeance. That's not what this is about.

A (46:52)

Right. If you think weaponization sucks and you think Biden weaponized, then you need to think that this weaponization also sucks.

B (46:58)

Yeah. And if you don't like Jim Comey, that's fine too. And it's not about Jim Comey on this level. Do you want to see your son, your daughter, your next door neighbor, your husband, your wife subjected to a different kind of justice than someone else because of who they vote for or the position they take on the local school board, or who knows? I mean, when this becomes the norm, every one of us is vulnerable to some sort of baseless detention. Right. That is why we became a country. That's why the main reason our forefathers fought the Brits, because we were sick of that shit. Like, don't let that go. You gotta, you gotta stand up and care about these things despite, like, who the person is at the center of it.

A (47:51)

Agreed. Just so you know, Comey will be arraigned on October 9. The case has been assigned to Judge Nachmanoff, who is a Biden appointee. And we'll be following this. I know. You know, I thought maybe it would be cool for, for, for Jim to be like, nope, I don't want to file any pretrial motions. Let's go straight to trial. 70 days, speedy trial. Let's go. I want to embarrass you in court.

B (48:13)

Load it up.

A (48:14)

But you know that that's exceedingly risky to put things in front of a jury. You're so. I, I, you know, I talked to back and forth a little bit on social media to Brad Moss about that, who's an excellent attorney, and he's like, yeah, no, you're going to see all the motions to dismiss. You're going to see a ton of them. And then we'll probably see a bill of particulars and we'll talk about all of it. And as this unfolds, this is just like you said, one of the most egregious examples in history of the corruption of the Department of Justice and the weaponization of, of the same. So we're definitely going to be keeping an eye on that. Anyway, I know Adam Klassfeld is going to be in Alexandria for the arraignment on October 9th, so you might want to follow him over at All Rise News. And I know Anna Bauer is covering this really well also at Lawfare. So. All right. We have actually some more stuff to talk about today, but we have to take a quick break, so everybody stick around. We'll be right back. Foreign hey, everybody, welcome back. Apart from the mass exodus from the Department of Justice following the corrupt Eric Adams bribery charge dismissal, you'll remember Danielle Sassoon and everybody pretty much left that, that particular U.S. attorney's office. This Comey indictment has led to other resignations as well. First, we know about Eric siebert, right, the U.S. attorney that was forced to resign for refusing to indict Mike Comey and Tish James and Adam Schiff and whoever else, probably Brennan. And then from cnn, James Comey's son in law, Troy Edwards, who was sitting in the front row that we were talking about when that indictment was returned against Comey. He resigned Thursday night from his position as a senior national security prosecutor shortly after the former FBI director was indicted in a one sentence letter to U.S. attorney Lindsay Halligan. I can't believe that's a sentence that I have to say. That was obtained by cnn, Edwards wrote. To uphold my oath to the Constitution and country, I hereby resign as an assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Department of Justice effective immediately. Edwards worked in the same Virginia office that is now prosecuting his father in law.

B (50:31)

CNN spotted Edwards at the courthouse as reporters waited to see whether the grand jury would hand up an indictment Thursday. He spoke to the judge privately in chambers for about 30 minutes. This summer, Comey's daughter, Maureen Comey was fired from her job as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan and later sued the Justice Department claiming it was in retaliation for being the daughter of the former FBI director. As a prosecutor, Maureen Comey was involved in the Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Sean Combs cases, as well as a high profile case against gynecologist Robert Haddon for sexually abusing many patients. Yeah.

A (51:10)

Now, in a memo as she departed, Maureen Comey wrote, fear is the tool of a tyrant wielded to suppress independent thought. Instead of fear, let this moment fuel the fire that already burns at the heart of this place, a fire of righteous indignation at abuses of power, of commitment to seek justice for victims, of dedication to truth above all else. And I think Jim Comey actually quoted her fear is the tool of a tyrant. In his video, Maureen Comey is one of several federal civil servants fired by the Trump administration who have filed lawsuits to reinstate their positions or seek pay in a challenge to the administration's sweeping removal of FBI agents and other federal prosecutors without notice or conforming to legal procedures.

B (51:53)

Also from CNN Attorney General Pam Bondi's chief of staff, Chad Meisell is leaving the Justice Department. The attorney general and her deputy confirmed in statements provided to CNN on Tuesday. Meiselle's planned departure, which multiple sources had previously confirmed to cnn, also comes as the department faces intense backlash over its decision not to release any additional evidence related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation after Bondi made assurances she would do so. Multiple sources said Mizell's departure is not related to Epstein. But nine months is a comparatively short tenure for a chief of staff, not.

A (52:32)

Necessarily in a Trump administration. That's a good point. Yeah. Recently, I'm surprised how many people have made it nine months already. Recently, several White House staffers have been vocal about their frustration with Meiselle, according to two sources familiar. There's no indication that the frustrations reached the president. The frustration stemmed from the belief that Meisell should have been protecting Bondi from the fallout over the Epstein files controversy. Now, the blame came as early as February when she distributed binders labeled as the Epstein Files Phase one to right wing influencers at the White House. The influencers shared later that there was no new information in the binders. So that is what's happening there. More, more resignations. And like you said, I think there'll be even more as she goes around and tries to find somebody to sign onto this and go to court.

B (53:25)

Yeah, and we'll obviously, we'll track all this stuff very closely, but there's all kinds of other investigative activity right now that's being directed at allegations or involving, you know, people from the FBI in 2016 or DOJ or the intelligence community for that matter. So they've, they've released a ton of material to the Hill in the last couple of weeks. So this is not the end of the revenge tour. Right. It's not the end of the, you know, Jim is not the last person who's going to be the subject of, you know, charges that are demanded by the president in all likelihood. So, yeah, as those cases continue to stumble and fall forward, if, if they do, I think you could very easily see other US Assistant US Attorneys who, who stand up and say, I'm not going to be a part of this. I'm just not going to do it.

A (54:22)

Yeah. And other DOJ officials, like Neves, for example, are actually getting in trouble with federal judges. Adam Klassfeld reports that a judge found it appears that multiple employees of the Department of Justice may have violated local rules in the Southern District of New York that guarantee Luigi Mangione's right to a fair trial. And this is a little snippet from that order. It says on September 23, the defendant filed a letter advising the court of various public statements made about this case by various members of the government. It appears from this letter multiple employees at the Department of Justice probably violated Local Criminal Rule 23.1 and this Court's order of April 25, 2025, specifically identifying the strictures of this rule for counsel and directing the prosecution team to ensure that the highest levels of the Department of Justice, up to and including Attorney General Bondi, were aware and understood they were bound by this rul. And basically what happened is a couple of high level DOJ employees retweeted Trump saying he's guilty as hell. And, you know, just, you know, statements that violate that Local Rule 23.1 about extrajudicial statements that could rob Luigi Mangione of a fair trial and this could put, you know, the death penalty at risk. You know, we'll see what ends up happening, but just more errors after more errors on top of errors about extrajudicial statements from the Department of Justice. Justice.

B (55:47)

Yep. There you go.

A (55:49)

Yeah. All right, we've got one more quick story and a listener question, but we have to take one last quick break, so stick around. We'll be right back.

B (56:07)

Okay, one more story before we get to listener questions. Weaponization of the Justice Department isn't just about going after your political enemies. It's about refusing to investigate your allies. As Jack Smith said in his remarks at George Mason University, it was shocking that the Department of Justice failed to investigate the signal chats where the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, relayed classified information over a non secure network with a journalist in the chat. The same is true for the next story from NBC. In an undercover operation last year, the FBI recorded Tom Homan, now the White House border czar, accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents who were posing as business executives win government contracts in a second Trump administration, according to multiple people familiar with the probe and internal documents reviewed by msnbc.

A (57:05)

He's got to be easy to fool, right? I just. I just pictured these two business executives. I picture Romy and Michelle as the businesswomen asking for the women special at the cafe. They have it on tape, audio tape. And I know that Sky Perryman has actually filed a FOIA request for for these audio tapes. The FBI and the Justice Department planned to wait and see whether Homan would deliver on his alleged promise once he became a top immigration official, but the case indefinitely stalled after Donald Trump became president in January, according to six sources familiar with the matter. In recent weeks, Trump appointees officially closed the investigation and Kash Patel requested a STAT update. Well, they closed it right after Kash Patel requested that status update. It's unclear what reasons FBI and Justice Department officials gave for shutting down the investigation, but I can guess. A Trump Justice Department appointee called the case a deep state probe in early 2025, and no further investigative steps were taken after that.

B (58:06)

So IX THE ESTIGATION V. Yeah, totally. The federal investigation was launched in western Texas in the summer of 2024 after a subject in a separate investigation claimed that Homan was soliciting payments in exchange for awarding contracts should Trump win the presidential election. According to an internal Justice Department summary of the probe reviewed by MSNBC and people familiar with the case, the U.S. attorney's office in the Western District of Texas, working with the FBI, asked the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section to join its ongoing probe, quote, into the border czar and former acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Holman and others, based on evidence of payment from FBI undercover agents in exchange for facilitating future contracts related to border enforcement.

A (59:01)

Yep, yep. Undercover FBI agents posing as contractors communicated and met several times last summer with a business colleague who introduced them to Homer, and with Homan himself, who indicated he would facilitate securing contracts for them in exchange for money once he was in office. That's according to documents and people familiar on September 20, 2024, with hidden cameras recording the scene at a meeting spot in Texas, Homan accepted $50,000 in cash in a bag. According to an internal summary of the case and sources, FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors took no further investigative steps in the final months of 2024 and expected to keep monitoring Homan to determine if he landed an official role and would make good on steering contracts in a future Trump administration. So it sounds like The FBI in 2024 made the decision, hey, it is illegal to accept money on behalf of controlling government contracts, but it'll be a stronger case if we waited until he was actually in office. But you know that the whole case is going to be shut down anyway. I'm surprised that they didn't bring the charges here, but they felt that they didn't, that they wanted to wait and see if he would continue do this as an official, as a administration official instead of a non official.

B (60:17)

I don't, obviously I had nothing to do with this case, but from my experience, I think it's likely that they didn't have it without that. Because think about it, they gave him 50 grand on the chance that he, that Trump would get elected. First of all, Tom Homan, really, dude, you took $50,000. I mean, there's no one, no self respecting corrupt business person on earth would have paid you $50,000 before Trump was even president. Like, if you couldn't have figured out that that was undercover trying to get you in trouble, I don't know what's wrong with you.

A (60:52)

But that's not the brightest crayon in the sea, my friend.

B (60:55)

The point is, at that point, they've given him $50 on the assurance that he would do something corrupt if Trump is elected later. And that's pretty attenuated, especially in the post McDonald World of public corruption, where to pass a Supreme Court muster, you've got to have like an explicit offer and accept. You gotta have quid pro quo. No question. I'm giving you this 50 in return for that contract that we already talked about. Blah.

A (61:27)

Bl.

B (61:29)

So, you know, when Tom Homan is sitting there taking the kava bag filled with 50 grand, he's not in a position of public trust. He was out of government. So like there's, there were, I can see why at that point there were problems with the case, but that doesn't explain why you would drop it and walk away entirely. They had, sounds like they had a strategy to just let it, leave it be until Tom Homan was back in good graces and in the White House doing this work and who knows where it would have ended up.

A (62:02)

Yeah, and then they just shut it down. They just walked away. Like many of the cases that Pam Bondi's brother was representing. Yes, just dropped.

B (62:12)

Dropped it walked away.

A (62:15)

So that is also weaponization of the Justice Department because it's not just about going after your political enemies, it's about giving a break to your, your allies.

B (62:22)

Yes, absolutely, absolutely.

A (62:25)

So we had two massive, massive hits to the Department of Justice's integrity and independence just this week alone.

B (62:34)

Yep.

A (62:35)

Yeah. Anyway, thank you so much for that. And what do we have for questions today? We could probably have time for one, because I know we're a little bit over an hour.

B (62:43)

The other I had two, but the second one actually we already covered it and it had to do with the possibility of a of vindictive prosecution motion in the Comey cases. We already talked about that. So the one that we will go with comes to us from Nicholas. Nicholas starts. Dear Allison and Andrew, thank you so much for your very insightful podcast. I've been listening to Unjustified since the beginning, as well as Jack and Mueller. She wrote before then. And I appreciate your perceptive comments. Of course, it doesn't hurt that you're both very attractive and easy to listen to.

A (63:14)

So I can see why you picked this question.

B (63:17)

So far, Nicholas is hitting on all cylinders. Well done, Nicholas. Okay. I wanted to ask about something you touched on last week regarding Trump's threat that he would designate Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. He officially did this on Monday by way of an executive order. However, this designation doesn't appear to mean anything under U.S. law. The order directs the DOJ to investigate, disrupt and dismantle any and all illegal operations. But this is something that the DOJ has authority to do separate from any eo.

A (63:51)

Ding, ding, ding.

B (63:51)

Exactly, Nicholas. That being said. Okay, so then Nicholas goes into. He's wondering if this would open a Pandora's box, like allowing the next president to designate MAGA as a domestic terrorist organization. So I'll pause there. You are correct, Nicholas, that the executive order essentially has. It does nothing. There's a very good reason in this country why we do not designate domestic groups terrorist organizations. Congress passed a law that entitles the State Department to designate foreign terrorist organizations. And once they have designated a foreign terrorist organization, that gives the Department of Justice to go after that organization with all kinds of powers, like the ability to file charges against anyone who provides support to that organization. It's a criminal violation if you provide material people, yourself, whatever money, to a designated foreign terrorist organization. You can't do that on the domestic side because domestic terrorism always involves some degree of First Amendment protected speech, and that makes it very dicey. So the way the FBI investigates domestic terrorism is with criminal authorities. You might have a group that you. That you think about as being a domestic terrorist group because they fit the federal definition of domestic terrorism, a definition which has no criminal penalty, by the way. But if you want to put them in jail, you gotta prosecute them for using a weapon of mass destruction or committing a murder or something along those lines.

A (65:31)

Conspiracy to obstruct justice.

B (65:32)

There you go.

A (65:33)

Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

B (65:36)

Exactly.

A (65:36)

Seditious conspiracy. Right.

B (65:38)

All of those criminal laws are available to you if you have the facts to support them and none of them rely on this designation. The final thing I'll say is any expert will tell you, anyone with any experience doing counterterrorism work will tell you Antifa is not actually an organization. They've never had a designated leader. They've never had a structure, they've never had a location. What ANTIFA is, is really like, like it's a type of protest that attracts people of similar ideologies, typically very hardcore left wing anti government ideologies. And they sometimes wear similar clothing. They sometimes call themselves like black block clothing. They wear a lot of like black hoodies and stuff like that. But beyond those like, kind of surface similarities, there is no, there's never been an organizational structure identified around antifa.

A (66:43)

We don't have a rule book like the Proud Boys or the, you know. Exactly right.

B (66:47)

And so it's just an amorphous thing that attracts people who have, who share the same beliefs. So there's really nothing, I don't, I don't see anything happening as a result of this order.

A (67:01)

Yeah, and he doesn't cite any legal authority either. Like he, at least in his executive order to, you know, go after Trende Aragua, he cited the Alien Enemies act. And it's still up under litigation as to whether that's a lawful invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. The fifth Circuit, the extremely conservative fifth Circuit just said it's not. This isn't an invasion or a predatory incursion. So you can't invoke the Alien Enemies act to do what you're doing. And Donald Trump has asked for an en banc rehearing of that with a more conservative group of the full panel of 5th Circuit judges. But the Department of Justice has announced and sent out a memo that it is now going to investigate George Soros's foundation for, for this whatever, you know, ambiguous thing is for, for, you know, left wing terrorism or whatever. But, you know, they're just going to be investigating crimes that any organization would commit. And, and maybe they'll say in filings that, you know, it's a left wing whatever, but it's, it's, it's, there's no, it's like if you commit murder, you commit murder. It doesn't matter right now at sentencing you can get a terror enhancement, which is what happened with the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, but there's no legal authority and that's why none is cited in the executive order. And so. Yeah, yeah.

B (68:23)

And I mean, that's not the purpose of the executive order. The purpose, as we all know, is politics. He wants to be able to stand up at a rally and say, I'm fighting the left wing terror, lunatics, you know, whatever, Whatever. Great. How about it? If the George Soros foundation is engaged in some sort of criminal conspiracy, a racketeering enterprise or something like that, then they could be pro investigated and prosecuted for that alleged illegal activity. Now keep in mind, we have absolutely zero, zero evidence that that is the case. I don't think they've ever actually been accused of that in a legal.

A (68:57)

Yeah, but for supporting Democratic organizations, that's called politics.

B (69:02)

That's called the First Amendment. Right.

A (69:04)

Yeah.

B (69:05)

Anyway.

A (69:06)

And we'll end up with a similar kind of maybe Lindsey Halligan will get an indictment. Anyway, thank you so much for listening. Andy, thanks so much for talking about this. I know it's been not the best week and so I appreciate you being able and being willing to talk about it all.

B (69:26)

Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate giving having the space to do it, which is awesome. And I appreciate that our listeners are interested in listening to it. So yeah, hang in there.

A (69:38)

Our listeners are awesome. If you have a question, listeners, there's a link in the show notes you can click on and we will see you next week again. Who knows what's going to happen between now and then, but you know, stay safe and take care of yourselves and we'll see you then. I've been Allison Gill and I'm Andy McCabe. Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill, with additional research and analysis by Andrew McKinney. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hockey with art and web design by Joelle Reader at Moxie Design Studios. The theme music for Unjustified is written and performed by Ben Folds and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator owned independent podcasts dedicated to news, politics and justice. For more information please visit mswmedia.com.