'Contrary to the suggestion raised by the court': DOJ disputes 'missing' grand jury minutes in Comey indictment – immediately corrects clarification due to glaring typo

The Trump administration has issued an mentation implicit an alleged spread successful the transcript during the expansive assemblage presumption that resulted successful the indictment of erstwhile FBI Director James Comey.

On Friday, successful a flurry of tribunal filings, the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Lindsey Halligan insisted the transcript was wholly aboveboard – contempt the purported absence.

Earlier this week, Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, a Bill Clinton appointee, called attraction to an evident occupation with the transcript and squarely enactment the DOJ further connected the defensive.

The contretemps comes amid the still-unspooling conflict implicit whether Halligan was lawfully appointed arsenic interim U.S. attorney.

Love existent crime? Sign up for our newsletter, The Law&Crime Docket, to get the latest real-life transgression stories delivered close to your inbox.

During a proceeding implicit the assignment conflict connected Thursday, Currie described a information of the transcript arsenic "missing." The justice said it "appears determination was nary tribunal newsman present" oregon the tribunal newsman had ceased enactment during the expansive assemblage proceeding from astir 4:30 p.m. until the Comey indictment was handed up past mean concern hours connected Sept. 25, arsenic Law&Crime previously reported.

"It became evident to me," the justice said during the hearing, that Bondi "could not person reviewed" the full expansive assemblage proceeding.

The salience of specified a reappraisal is owed to Bondi's retroactive ratification of Halligan's enactment connected some the lawsuit against Comey arsenic good arsenic the indictment filed against New York Attorney General Letitia James.

In an appointment order filed Nov. 3, dated Oct. 31, Bondi said she appointed Halligan arsenic U.S. lawyer for the Eastern District of Virginia connected Sept. 22. The bid besides says Halligan was simultaneously made a "Special Attorney," which authorizes her to "conduct and supervise the prosecutions" of Comey and James. Finally, the bid aims to specifically "ratify" Halligan's "actions earlier the expansive assemblage and her signature connected the indictments returned by the expansive assemblage successful each case."

To perceive Comey's lawyer Ephraim McDowell archer it, Halligan's would-be assignment represents "a cardinal defect" showing she had "no authority" to contiguous the lawsuit to the expansive assemblage connected her own. It was "evasion of the Appointments Clause and separation of powers," according to a courtroom study by CNN.

More Law&Crime coverage: 'Severe and pervasive': Comey floats 'tainted' FBI peculiar cause mentation portion attacking expansive assemblage process arsenic rife with 'irregularities'

An lawyer for James echoed that assessment. Abbe Lowell said the authorities is claiming the powerfulness to authorize virtually anyone to "go into a expansive assemblage and get an indictment and the lawyer wide could aboriginal authorize that." To that end, Lowell said Halligan is "pretending" to beryllium a U.S. attorney, and cannot, by law, prosecute the cases.

The government, for its part, pushed backmost connected the timeline issue. Currie responded by noting however days aft the retroactive ratification, the DOJ came up with much expansive assemblage details it didn't person earlier.

The justice seemed to framework the contented of the "missing" expansive assemblage minutes arsenic possibly someway indicative of – oregon astatine slightest related to – the alleged underlying occupation with Halligan's appointment.

The DOJ seemingly sensed arsenic overmuch successful the six antithetic documents intended to code and close the contented docketed precocious Friday.

More Law&Crime coverage: 'Invalid connected its face': Pam Bondi's 'telling' effort to crook 'space and time' gave distant the crippled successful 1 fell swoop, tribunal filing says

First, the authorities filed an "informative announcement correcting the record," which described the contented and asked the tribunal to "take announcement of the attached declaration of U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan (Exhibit 1), and the attached ratification dated November 14, 2025, by U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi (Exhibit 2)."

The first exhibit refers to the "alleged spread successful the grand-jury record" and says "the transcript reflects that I, Lindsey Halligan and the tribunal newsman exited the grand-jury room."

The filing offers to "clarify the precise series of events" that occurred connected Sept. 22, and says the allegedly missing clip was simply accounting for the deliberations of the expansive jurors.

"By identifying that circumstantial timeframe, the tribunal placed the timing of the proceedings successful dispute," the papers reads. "There are nary missing minutes, contrary to the proposition raised by the court."

The second exhibit is an further retroactive ratification of Halligan's authority. This time, Bondi makes pains to notation the entirety of the expansive assemblage proceedings and aims to refute the court's proposition that the assignment was improper owed to the missing minutes.

Bondi's 2nd retroactive ratification reads, successful full:

On October 31, 2025, and based connected the grounds of the expansive assemblage proceedings that was disposable to the authorities astatine the time, I ratified the actions of United States Attorney Lindsey Halligan earlier the expansive assemblage and her signature connected the indictment returned by the expansive assemblage successful the lawsuit of United States v. Comey (Case No. 1:25-CR-00272). See Att'y Gen. Order No. 6485- 2025. The territory tribunal has subsequently raised questions astir the completeness of the grounds of the expansive assemblage proceedings presented to maine astatine the clip of that archetypal ratification. For the avoidance of doubt, I person reviewed the entirety of the grounds present disposable to the authorities and corroborate my cognition of the worldly facts associated with the expansive assemblage proceedings. Based connected that knowledge, I hereby workout the authorization vested successful the Attorney General by law, including 28 U.S.C. § 509, 510, and 518(b), to ratify Ms. Halligan's actions earlier the expansive assemblage and her signature connected the indictment returned by the expansive jury.

The DOJ's attempted cleanup, however, took a mates of tries.

In abbreviated order, the trio of documents was swiftly re-filed owed to a typo. In the archetypal grounds of the archetypal suite of clarification documents, Halligan was listed arsenic "Interim United Stated Attorney."