A federal judge tossed Trump’s indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, and trying to continue pursuing these charges could backfire, a former prosecutor warned Monday.
Now that the Trump administration’s indictments have been tossed, the administration can appeal or bring the charges again under other prosecutors — but they should consider just letting it go, argued former Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell on MS NOW. The whole case could become a much bigger mess if they try to revive it, she said.
The judge in this case ruled that Lindsey Halligan, the acting U.S. attorney hastily installed by the Justice Department after the previous U.S. attorney failed to find a credible basis to move forward with the prosecutions of Trump’s critics, was not lawfully appointed, and thus the indictments were null and void. Halligan, who made a series of blunders throughout the process, now faces the risk of disbarment in the view of some legal experts.
“So what happens next?” asked anchor Katy Tur. “I mean, we presume that the government is going to want — can we presume the government is going to want to refile these charges?”
“You know, I think it depends on what the point of filing the charges in the first place was,” said Caldwell. “They’d have to find a prosecutor who was willing to do it, which I’m sure they could probably do. They would be able to find somebody, perhaps one of the two North Carolina prosecutors, because the judge did rule that. She denied the government’s motion to make a dismissal with prejudice, so they can bring it back if they can have a valid attorney, whether they actually will or not.”
However, she continued, “there’s also a pending vindictive prosecution motion. And I think given the circumstances surrounding the case, they really should think long and hard about whether they want to bring this case back again. And they may have already achieved their main goal, which was to shame Comey and James.”
“I don’t know that they’ll actually feel shame, but I think that was certainly a large driver of the indictment in the first place,” she added.
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