Why indicting James Comey may come back to bite Trump
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As I think you are all following, we are continuing to follow very closely and we're continuing to learn more about the breaking news that former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted on two criminal counts by a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. That, of course, just happened in the last couple of hours. And we have a lot of people standing by who are going to help us break down the story and every detail of it and what it means and where we go from here. We have Congressman Jamie Raskin standing by. Andrew Weissman is going to join us. Virginia Senator Tim Kaine is going to join me as well. And I know all of them are going to have a lot to say because the news of Comey's indictment comes just days after President Trump said that the attorney general should prosecute his political enemies.
Now, as for the details of the charges, and some of you may have read this already, they are linked to testimony Comey gave virtually at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on September 30th, 2020, which is, of course, five years ago next Tuesday. That's an important detail. Now, today, Comey was charged with one count of making false statements and another count of obstruction. Both counts are related to allegations that Comey lied to Congress, and those charges have a five-year statute of limitations, hence the rush by Trump and his lackeys to get this done before the five-year mark next Tuesday. So today's indictment appears to have come really just in under the wire. And that's kind of the point.
That's all the rush here. That's all the craziness of the last week, and we're going to dig into all of that. And Donald Trump is super happy about that. Justice in America. One of the worst human beings this country has ever been exposed to is James Comey, the former corrupt head of the FBI. Today, he was indicted by a grand jury on two felony counts for various illegal and unlawful acts. He has been so bad for a country for so long and is now at the beginning of being held responsible for his crimes against Americans. Our nation make America great again. And I only read that because it's important to understand the absurdity of how he's approaching this and how much he has been saying the quiet part out loud about what he wants to happen here for not just the last week, but long before that.
Let me just back up for just a second, because we have no reason to believe Comey actually broke any laws here. And we have no reason to believe that prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia have any evidence that suggests he did. In fact, we have reason to believe the exact opposite. I mean, today's charges were brought by the brand new U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsay Halligan. Brand new as in a couple days brand new. She was just sworn into the position on Monday. And that is because last week her predecessor was essentially pushed out. Trump forced the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Eric Siebert, to resign last week after Siebert refused to bring charges against Trump's perceived enemies.
New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey were at the very top of that list. Now, Siebert refused to bring those charges because after months of investigating both cases, he did not believe his office had found evidence to support them. And that's a decision you make before you move a case forward. So Trump fired him and replaced him with Lindsey Halligan. Halligan is a clear Trump loyalist. She has never prosecuted a criminal case, and the only federal cases she has been involved with at all were Trump cases, where she served as one of Trump's personal defense attorneys. Last night, MSNBC's Ken Delaney reported that after Halligan was sworn into her new position, line prosecutors at the office presented her with a memo suggesting that their case against Comey was too weak to pursue.
Let's not move forward. That was the recommendation. That's what Eric Siebert thought, too. Two sources familiar with the case said specifically that the memo explained why prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence to convince a grand jury to indict Comey.
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