WASHINGTON – Former FBI Director James Comey filed his resignation Monday. criminal charges brought against him, claiming that the president's lawyer Donald Trump appointed to prosecute him, Lindsey Halligan, was not assigned properly and what's the matter was politically motivated.
Comey's team argued that the charge arose from “multiple egregious constitutional violations and flagrant abuses of power by the federal government” and that “fundamental principles of due process and equal protection have long ensured that government officials cannot use the courts to punish and imprison their perceived personal and political enemies.”
HalliganThe former insurance lawyer, who is now the interim head of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, was “improperly appointed to her position as interim U.S. Attorney,” Comey's lawyers argue, adding that her appointment “violated the Congressionally designed and constitutionally required means for the Attorney General to designate an official as interim U.S. Attorney.”
Comey's team further argued that “because no duly appointed executive branch official sought or obtained the indictment, it is also void.”
Comey, one of several Trump critics targeted by the Justice Department this year, pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against himwhich focuses on congressional testimony in 2020, when he reaffirmed previous testimony he gave in 2017 regarding authorization to leak information to the media while he was head of the FBI.
One of Komi's exhibitions presented on Monday is 60-page archive with statements Comey and Trump have made about each other.
Comey's lawyers also cited the president's September social media post in which he called on Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute his political opponents. His lawyers said that “less than 48 hours after President Trump's post was published, Ms. Halligan was sworn in as the interim United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Ms. Halligan was a Special Assistant to the President and a White House official.”
Halligan's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the documents presented Monday.
Comey's lawyers noted that Halligan, who previously served as Trump's personal attorney, had no experience as a prosecutor, adding that “no other prosecutor from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia participated in the grand jury presentation. Ms. Halligan presented a three-count indictment to the grand jury.”
“Ms. Halligan's illegal title tarnished the structural integrity of the grand jury process. Absent Ms. Halligan's illegal title, she would not have been able to enter the grand jury room, much less present and sign the indictment,” they wrote.
