A Justice Department memo found that a key witness in the Trump-ordered prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey will actually undermine the entire case, reported ABC News Wednesday.
It was previously reported that prosecutors in a September memo warned Lindsey Halligan, Donald Trump’s hand-picked U.S. attorney leading the case, against pursuing it due to insufficient evidence. Defying that warning, Halligan got Comey indicted last month, including for allegedly misleading Congress when he denied having authorized others at the FBI to leak information anonymously to the media.
Daniel Richman, a Columbia University law professor, was supposed to be a major witness—apparently as someone Comey allegedly authorized to speak to reporters anonymously—but investigators found that his testimony would actually be “problematic” and pose “likely insurmountable problems” for the prosecution, according to ABC News sources.
In a September interview, Richman told investigators that the former FBI director “instructed him not to engage with the media on at least two occasions” and “never authorized him to provide information to a reporter anonymously ahead of the 2016 election.” ABC News sources also said a review of Comey’s emails, including with Richman, “could not identify an instance when Comey approved leaking material to a reporter anonymously.” The memo recommended that prosecutors not move forward with the case.
It is the latest of several blinding neon signs indicating that Comey is facing trumped-up charges simply for being on Trump’s bad side.
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