Judge dismisses James Comey and Letitia James cases, finding prosecutor's appointment invalid

[Say it aint so]

If judges are allowed to pick and choose federal DA's, then judges are overstepping their roles as judges. The DA must be selected by the Presidents and then approved by the Senate.

"The DA must be selected by the Presidents and then approved by the Senate."​

Yes, which is why you can't just interim appoint one person after the other and bypass the senate altogether. They may have more interim AGs than senate confirmed. So the actual law renders Keith Gross and Mike Davis points moot. What they are just saying is the same thing as you, you just don't like the law. Why is it so hard for this admin to just follow laws?

 

[Arcangl86]

That one judge is merely attempting to help Comey and James instead of allowing them to go to trial.

James can still go through a trial. The case was dismissed w/o prejudice which means it can be refiled. It can even be refiled by Halligan as long she isn't pretending to be US attorney when she does so. Judge Currie even supported her decision to do so even though she had the power to bar the case from being refiled.

 

[JSRG]

I see Comey’s lie right there in that article and I heard his lie while testifying to the Senate.

Despite the fact you claim to "see" it, you seem unable to actually identify it, for if you did surely you would explain it. Instead you simply respond with nothing more than the message I just quoted in which you avoid actually answering the question.

Once again, as the article notes:

Here the specific text of the question Comey answered in his testimony matters a lot—for a number of reasons. Grassley asked Comey: “have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation” (emphasis added).

It is thus not adequate for proof that Comey made a false statement for the government to show that Richman interfaced with reporters on Comey’s behalf. That fact has never been a secret (Richman did much of this work in the open and on a named basis), and Comey has never denied it. In fact, it was Comey who dramatically announced Richman’s role in Senate testimony that the brief later quotes (see pages 10-11).

Rather, to prove that Comey lied, the government has to show (a) that Richman was “at the FBI” at the time; (b) that Comey “authorized” the press contact; (c) that he authorized Richman to do the contact anonymously; and (d) that the contact concerned the Trump or Clinton investigation.

The government's brief had a lot of words, but ultimately, as the article notes after going through all of it, none of it appeared able to point to any example of when Comey authorized Richman to anonymously contact the press about the Trump or Clinton investigation while Richman was at the FBI.

So, for example:

The next paragraph (page 8) is where things really go off the rails. “Mr. Richman also corresponded with Reporter 1 via text message shortly after the defendant’s termination as FBI Director. Over a period of days beginning on May 11, 2017, the pair texted,” the government alleges and follows with a string of texts between Schmidt and Richman in which Richman does, in fact, appear to be waiting for authorization to speak to Schmidt as an unnamed source.

But there’s a problem with using this exchange to prove Comey a liar for his May 3, 2017, testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It took place a week after that testimony, when Comey was no longer FBI director and when Richman was thus no longer in any conceivable sense “at the FBI” (having resigned) as an adviser to the director (who had been fired). By this time, Richman was part of Comey’s legal team. And what’s more, none of the communications between Richman and Schmidt even plausibly regard stories about the Clinton investigation. Instead, their exchanges concern Schmidt’s reporting about a variety of other topics, including Comey’s forthcoming public testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the investigation of Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser.

And the same sort of thing applies to it looks like everything else that supposedly shows he lied. So, once again, as it concludes:

And that is all there is. You can pore over this brief all day long, and you won’t find anything else suggesting that Comey’s Senate testimony on May 3, 2017, was false—or that his standing by that testimony five years less three days before his indictment was false.

All of which raises the question: Where’s the lie?

I was wondering if maybe I was overlooking something, but it appears both you and the government are either unable or unwilling to give a real answer to the question.

Though I should point out once again that even if the government's case against Comey was actually strong, it still would have nothing to do with whether Halligan was properly appointed or not, which is what the dismissal was about.

 

[JSRG]

If judges are allowed to pick and choose federal DA's, then judges are overstepping their roles as judges. The DA must be selected by the Presidents and then approved by the Senate.

If you are trying to insinuate that the law is unconstitutional, this doesn't actually help you in your claims that the judge was wrong. Because if the law that they tried to use to install Halligan is ruled unconstitutional, then... obviously, they couldn't install Halligan that way (a reasonably straightforward reading of the law also says they can't install Halligan, but the point is if the law is unconstitutional to begin with, then they definitely can't install her under it, because it's unconstitutional).

Even if your assertion is that not the whole law is unconstitutional, merely the specific part of the law that allows for the district court to choose the interim attorney after the 120-day period has expired, that still doesn't help Halligan because the result of that would simply mean that once we're past that 120-day period, which we are, the position stays empty until the Senate confirms someone. Since Halligan has not been confirmed by the Senate (has she even been nominated?), she's therefore not appointed to the position.

Thus under the interpretation you appear to be advancing, Halligan's appointment is still invalid.