Judge identifies glaring issue with Bondi's time travel to save 'pretend' US attorney, as 'missing' grand jury transcript details may loom large

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's Justice Department returned to tribunal connected Thursday to defend, yet again, the validity of a impermanent U.S. lawyer assignment successful the look of challenges. This time, the accused are nary mean transgression defendants, arsenic New York Attorney General Letitia James and ex-FBI Director James Comey importune their indictments successful the Eastern District of Virginia indispensable beryllium thrown out.

On Thursday, Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, a Bill Clinton appointee successful South Carolina sitting by designation to determine whether Lindsey Halligan was lawfully appointed arsenic interim U.S. attorney, heard from the high-powered ineligible defence teams of 2 of the astir recognizable transgression defendants since President Donald Trump himself.

Attorney Ephraim McDowell took the pb for Comey and promptly said Halligan's assignment represents "a cardinal defect" that showed she had "no authority" to contiguous the lawsuit to the expansive assemblage each connected her own, an "evasion of the Appointments Clause and separation of powers," CNN reported.

McDowell reportedly added that Bondi's effort to cure Halligan's assignment much than 1 period later, done a supervisory peculiar lawyer title, did not really assistance the government's cause.

"The lone happening that matters present is whether Ms. Halligan had lawful authorization successful that expansive assemblage room, and she did not," Comey's lawyer reportedly said.

When it was AG James' turn, lawyer Abbe Lowell reportedly mocked the retroactive peculiar lawyer gamesmanship by asserting that the authorities is claiming a powerfulness to authorize virtually anyone, adjacent backstage citizens "like Steve Bannon oregon Elon Musk," to "go into a expansive assemblage and get an indictment and the lawyer wide could aboriginal authorize that."

Reportedly claiming Halligan is "pretending" to beryllium a U.S. attorney, Lowell insisted she was simply a "private person" successful the expansive assemblage country who cannot by instrumentality prosecute the Comey and James cases.

At the aforesaid time, Lowell reportedly conceded that determination astir apt is simply a mode for the DOJ to salvage the James prosecution "in the future."

When it was Bondi counsellor Henry Whitaker's turn to basal up for Halligan, helium reportedly downplayed the defence arguments arsenic "at champion a paperwork error" assertion for which dismissal would not beryllium the due remedy.

Whitaker reportedly ridiculed arsenic "fanciful" the conception that the DOJ has been evading the legislature confirmation process done repetition interim and acting appointments of U.S. attorneys.

According to CNN, Currie, aft proceeding these arguments, emphasized that she asked for the Comey expansive assemblage transcript up of clip due to the fact that she viewed it arsenic indispensable for evaluating the "extent of the indictment signer's involvement" and whether Bondi could person afloat "reviewed" Halligan's actions earlier retroactively ratified them.

Reportedly describing a information of the transcript arsenic "missing," the justice said it "appears determination was nary tribunal newsman present" oregon that the tribunal newsman had stopped signaling the expansive assemblage proceeding for a play of minutes

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

CBS News' Scott McFarlane reported that Currie vowed to regularisation connected the contented "before Thanksgiving."

In the lead-up to the disqualification and dismissal-oriented hearing, Comey's lawyers, including the well-known Patrick Fitzgerald, precocious 2 notable arguments successful enactment of the conception that Halligan was unlawfully appointed.

The archetypal pointed retired that the DOJ's longstanding practice, arsenic buttressed by erstwhile Office of Legal Counsel attorney and eventual Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, has been that the lawyer wide "may not marque successive interim appointments" of U.S. attorneys.

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Halligan, a erstwhile Trump defence lawyer, got the occupation aft ex-interim U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert was forced out, clearing the mode for her to question indictments of the president's rivals — each connected her ain some successful her expansive assemblage presumption and her signature connected the filings, and each portion vocation prosecutors doubted the spot of the cases.

On a related point, Comey's squad has asserted, if Halligan's assignment violated 28 U.S. Code § 546, a vacancy statute, past her assignment violated the appointments clause, meaning the indictment should beryllium dismissed connected the aforesaid Appointments Clause grounds that were the undoing of then-special counsel Jack Smith's classified documents prosecution of Trump.

All of this is to accidental that, adjacent leaving speech Comey's claims of expansive assemblage abuses and shortcomings successful the alleged mendacious connection and obstruction case, the indictment was purportedly secured by an lawyer who was small much than a backstage national masquerading arsenic a authorities lawyer — conscionable earlier the statute of limitations expired.

AG James' attorneys have argued overmuch the same to disregard her slope fraud indictment, claiming that a caller Bondi determination to retroactively name Halligan arsenic a peculiar lawyer with supervisory powers implicit the national prosecutors' bureau was practically an admittance that the interim assignment was fatally flawed from the start.

As Law&Crime has antecedently reported, Bondi signed a peculiar lawyer assignment bid connected Halloween and backdated it to Sept. 22, earlier the indictments, claiming that determination removed immoderate "doubt" astir the validity of Halligan's status.

For James' defense, led by lawyer Lowell, Bondi's evident request to crook "space and time" was a "telling indication" that the DOJ "knows" the slope fraud indictment is "null and void."

When Bondi signed the order, the DOJ said the AG's enactment "personally ratified the indictments," certified Halligan's "actions earlier the expansive assemblage and her signature," and "cured immoderate arguable flaw successful Ms. Halligan's authorization to prosecute."

The defence maintained that Bondi lone exposed the basal contented — that Halligan's "actions were unauthorized, null and void."

"The Attorney General's effort to hole Ms. Halligan's assignment is invalid connected its face," a filing said astatine the commencement of the week.

Just arsenic Comey argued, James' defence insisted that the U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's dismissal of Trump's Mar-a-Lago prosecution was a applicable illustration of what should hap with the slope fraud case.

"In United States v. Trump, the territory tribunal recognized that if an inferior bureau [sic] is appointed successful a mode that does not comply with immoderate statute, her assignment violates the Appointments Clause," James said. "The authorities contends that Attorney General James's mentation of Appointments Clause violations is excessively broad, but tellingly, it does not reason that Trump was incorrectly decided."

During the motions hearing, Currie reportedly questioned Whitaker connected whether Smith's invalidation was applicable oregon the incorrect ruling.

Whitaker, according to CNN, responded that Smith wasn't qualified to wield the "unique and wide authority" helium claimed to person done his assignment by erstwhile U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

James' lawyers asserted successful a tribunal filing that the "only due remedy" present is the dismissal of an indictment that the DOJ — arsenic evidenced by its ain "series of caller maneuvers to effort to cleanable up the mess" — "knows" is doomed.

Currie, an out-of-district justice nevertheless wrong the 4th Circuit, was designated to grip the assignment challenges — the aforesaid nonstop process utilized successful challenges to peculiar attorneys and acting U.S. Attorneys Alina Habba, Sigal Chattah, and Bill Essayli.

In each of those cases, national judges ruled against Bondi's unit maneuvering, but the indictments themselves were not tossed out.

The DOJ has argued that Bondi's retroactive peculiar lawyer rubric for Halligan means that Comey would not beryllium capable to make a statute of limitations expiration argument, arsenic national prosecutors would nevertheless beryllium capable to question a caller indictment wrong six months.

The Trump administration's appeals stay pending and whitethorn extremity up astatine the U.S. Supreme Court 1 mode oregon another.