Federal Judge’s UNPRECEDENTED Findings THREATEN ENTIRE DOJ?!?

a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps. And that's the more charitable side of a 24-page ruling by a federal judge ordering the disclosure of grand jury transcripts to James Comey's defense. In this 24-page order, US Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick, in addition to ordering the disclosure of these grand jury materials in full to the defense, identifies potentially 11 defects in the grand jury proceedings brought by rookie prosecutor, former Trump attorney, Lindsay Halligan, who's now leading the Eastern

District of Virginia in its crusade against James Comey and Letitia James. We're going to go into the fallout of an excoriating ruling, and happening two days before the next live court proceedings in the case against James Comey. Here to hash it out with us is former federal prosecutor Mimi Rocha, who prosecuted for many years in the Southern District of New York, prominent legal commentator. Mimi, thank you for joining here on All Rise News and Legal AF. How are you doing?

I'm doing well. Thanks, Adam. I know you've been talking about this opinion for many hours because it is worthy of talking about this opinion for many hours because it is worthy of talking about that much.

Yes. I mean, it is absolutely explosive. What was your first reaction as a former prosecutor looking at this opinion? Not only does the judge find that there are two fundamental misstatements of law that Lindsey Halligan gave to the grand jury. I'm going to read one of those misstatements of law. According to the ruling, quote, that statement clearly suggested to the grand jury they did not have to rely only on the record before them to determine probable cause, but could be assured the government had more evidence, perhaps better evidence, that would be presented at trial.

So she tells the jury that they don't have to rule on an indictment, only on the record before them, and finds that there may be potentially Fourth Amendment violations over the evidence that they obtained during the investigation. There could be a Sixth Amendment right to counsel problem over attorney-client privilege of communications. What was your reaction to this ruling?

I mean, honestly, my first reaction was, this is what happens when you put incompetence with vindictiveness. And I'm not even using vindictiveness in the legal sense, though obviously there is an argument about vindictiveness here, which Comey is making in court, but just the way in which this was done,

if you think back to how quickly Eric Sieber, you know, resigned and we knew exactly why he resigned, it was made public that it was because he didn't think there was probable cause. And then within, I think, 24, 36 hours, Lindsey Halligan is, you know, insurance lawyer,

is the US attorney and is in the grand jury. And frankly, we were all kind of shocked that the grand jury had returned the indictment because it did seem so inexplicable when you saw the indictment, how thin it was. It was incomprehensible, frankly,

and the red flags about the magistrate to whom she returned it to. So I bring all that up because even at the time, circumstantially, it seemed like something was just wrong. And now, thankfully, we're getting, we, the defendant, who is charged with a federal crime,

is getting a window into that that makes sense. It just seemed like, I mean, there were a lot of us who were saying, a lot of former prosecutors, people watching this, lawyers who said, something happened in that grand jury. Like this just doesn't make sense.

And that is now starting to become clear. And this is why prosecution, it's not just, I mean, it's the power of the prosecutor, the immense power and the deliberation and experience that is supposed to come with it. I mean, high profile indictment, first of all,

we've been saying all along that false statement cases are hard, hard cases to bring. I mean, I think that was one of the first things we said. They're not easy to prove, by the way. And then, you know, all the circumstances surrounding this one.

But also in a high profile case, normally, you would talk about this with your colleagues endlessly. You would talk about how to do your presentment in the grand jury, but they were running on the statute of limitations here and they were, you know, I'll be damned, I'm going to get this in. And just kind of,

it's like shoving it down the throat of the grand jury, basically. It's the equivalent of that. And that's all coming back now. So, I mean, I think that was sort of my first reaction is, on the one hand, shock, because it is shocking to read a judge saying this about anybody sitting in the chair of any federal prosecutor, let alone the US attorney, let alone the attorney general,

which we'll talk about.

But also kind of not shocked, because this almost made more sense than when the indictment was returned. Like, yeah, there was just a whole bunch of things that went wrong that made it so that they were able to get an indictment that they frankly never should have gotten in the first place, should have been able to get in the first place.

I want to follow up on that point, the surprise that they were able to obtain two of the three counts. The grand jury rejected one of those counts, and the two counts was by a razor thin margin. And now we discover that on the low threshold of probable cause of a crime, a grand jury, they was able to return an indictment

on that low threshold by a razor thin margin when the prosecutor presenting the case to them was working potentially with unlawfully obtained evidence through a testimony of an FBI agent who may have been tainted by attorney-client privileged

communications and instructed by the US attorney that they could assume they have stronger evidence than the evidence before them. Does that...

And that Comey would have to be the one to explain all of this at trial. Right. So it's, I mean, there were three major errors, right? the evidence obtained potentially unlawfully, beyond the scope of the warrant, violating attorney-client privilege, the burden shifting to Comey, and the you can consider basically,

you should assume we have other stuff kind of thing. I mean, it's hard to overstate how sacrosanct the attorney-client privilege is in the Department of Justice. It is one of those rules, laws, constitutional rights but there's so many processes about it. I mean, I spent endless hours of my life going to the section of the Department of Justice

to get approval for, you know, reading things or looking at things or obtaining things that had lawyer involvement in it because we were so careful not to, that we wanted to be careful and the Department of Justice demanded that we be careful under its rules and regulations.

And so again, I mean, the judge here doesn't just say they seem to have violated, basically says they did it very callously almost, right? I forget which word exactly he used, but it was like the agent looked at it in violation, looked at these materials, and went and testified about it

and briefed Lindsey Halligan on it. I mean, I'm pretty shocked at the FBI agent also. I don't know who this agent is, but I'm sort of less shocked at Halligan, but the agent, frankly, should have known better as well. I mean, the FBI is very attuned to this also.

So I can imagine the pressure that was going on. And, you know, I just want to say one more thing about the various missteps. This is sort of a broader point for a second, which is, this isn't an isolated incident. On the one hand, it really is clear that Halligan's inexperience, I mean, forget inexperience, like literally had never set foot in a grand jury.

You know, we had rules in the Southern District of New York. If you were a new prosecutor, you could not go in a grand jury by yourself until at least three different presentations. You always had to have a senior person with you. They were actively involved.

They were training you. And then, you know, beyond that, you still, again, consulted with people and, you know, especially in a high-profile case like this, but in any case. And yet, you know, we have here, so her inexperience is definitely relevant.

And again, the fact that they, she's the equivalent of shoving it down their throat, I think. But this also is kind of a pattern with this administration and this Department of Justice this willingness to just not only shun tradition, we talk all the time about norms, but to just not care about candor to the court, the constitutional rights of people. Even if you go back to the whole incident with the Adams

case in the Southern District of New York, Judge Ho said that the reasons given by the government to dismiss the indictment were pretextual. That's saying they were false, they were lying. That was shocking then, and it's still shocking now. But it's part of the same pattern, we will say and do whatever we need to do to achieve our ends. And by the way,

those ends are dictated not by justice and facts and law, but what Donald Trump wants. And that's really... And there are other examples too. I mean, we can do many. Those are the two. We have two very strong ones here, but that's the fundamental problem here is And this is why the Department of Justice should not be cases should not be dictated by the president So sorry, I just had to make that broader point

Absolutely, and in the Southern District of New York led by US Attorney Jay Clayton Clayton himself was Dressed down by two federal judges who said that his efforts to try to unseal grand jury records in the Epstein and Glenn Maxwell cases were, in the words of two federal judges, a diversion. I want to pivot back to another grand jury matter. Folks who've been watching this channel know that since last week, it

was divulged that there is a more than two hour gap in the grand jury record starting Halligan's courtroom declaration, claiming, oh, the grand jury was deliberating then. He pokes holes in that every which way. And I wonder at what point discipline could potentially enter in here, where there's a rule candor to the tribunal. What are your thoughts on if this is poked into a little bit more, her explanation as

to the grand jury supposedly deliberating for more than two hours, and the timeline doesn't add up in the way that the judge picks apart in his ruling, what are the potential consequences for Lindsey Halligan?

So I'll get to that in one second, but two things. One, I was smirking or smiling a little bit because you picked up on this immediately and you have been the one saying something is really fishy here with this timeline. I mean, so, you, so kudos to you.

Not surprised that you picked up on it, but you really zeroed in on that. As for the disciplinary issue, on the one hand, I have to say it feels quaint almost to be talking about disciplinary issues. On the other hand, we absolutely should.

I teach professional responsibility right now at Fordham Law School, and we talk about these things. And I think I actually said the other day, half joking, half not, to the class, if you remember nothing else, remember that you need to be honest with the courts. Candor to the court is probably one of the most important roles

and is something that judges take so seriously because for obvious reasons, not just with the government, but they need to be able to depend, rely on the veracity of what they're being told by lawyers. I mean, you have hearings, you have fact-finding, but not on every single statement that a lawyer makes.

They are supposed to, they are presumed to be honest. Any lawyer, let alone a government lawyer, we've talked about in other contexts, the presumption of regularity. I mean, this is even bigger than that. This is the presumption that you're gonna tell the truth.

If it turns out that it can really be proven that she, which very well may be. I'm not doubting that. I'm just saying we're not quite there yet. There's been a lot of holes poked. There's a lot of smoke.

This is very, raises a lot of red flags. If it can really be shown that she lied to the court about this, that is absolutely something that a disciplinary committee would look at and would take very seriously in terms of whether she should keep her law license or not.

And with good reason. Again, how are we supposed to teach these kind of things to lawsuits? I mean, this is something we talk about in my class all the time, that the, how, what can law schools do better to make sure that people come out with, you know, following legal ethics, or I don't know, following just basic principles of honesty. We can't expect law

schools to do that if we don't enforce it in the real world in really important consequential instances like this. So I think it's on the one hand feels a little bit quaint to be talking about that and on the other hand feels so important to be talking about that, and on the other hand, feel so important to be talking about that and to see what happens. I mean, unfortunately, we have a, you know, Beauvais, who I just mentioned, he was the one who was giving these pretextual reasons to the court, and there were all sorts of other issues about his candor, both in front of the questions about his candor in front of the congressional committee when he testified and about what he was saying behind the scenes

about the planes taking off and what they should do with court orders, et cetera. And there've been allegations that he outright said defy orders and that he lied about it. And yet he's sitting as to be able to do that. And so, you know, he's not going

to be able to say that he did defy orders and that he lied about it. And yet, he's sitting as a judge on the Third Circuit. And, you know, for law students who look

at that, for people, forget law students, but especially law students, who look at that and say, well, where are the lawyer. So we, we somewhat this needs to be followed, followed up and followed through. And again, you know, it's rare to have this window into the grand jury. I mean, this is usually

secret, we don't have this. But the need, the particularized need has been met here. And so now this little window is going to turn into an even bigger window. And I think, you know, these judges seem pretty intent on making sure people know what happened. They're not hiding behind grand jury secrecy here.

Of course. And after the 2020 election, of course, there was a cascade of consequences for the lawyers who enabled it. What is potentially the fallout? We had Attorney General Pam Bondi

judge said I've reviewed this grand jury material and there's a gap. She reviewed it again and put in another ratification.

Does she face potential disciplinary exposure too? I think potentially, yes. I mean, it's a little more complicated in the sense that she's one step removed and so you'd have to get into what Halligan told her and did it impact her view of. But if the judge can tell from looking at the minutes of the grand jury, the transcript, then Bondi should be able to.

And also, she's the more experienced one. I mean, Halligan, not that it should be an excuse for all the reasons we discussed at the beginning, but Bondi is supposedly the experienced prosecutor here, and she's the boss, she's where the buck stops. So it's so problematic, it's so disturbing,

and it is so a sign again of just where we are and what happens when you corrupt something like this. This is not an isolated incident as much as I just want to say, this is what happens when you put an insurance lawyer in the grand jury. Yes, but it's also what happens when you are taking your orders from the president and not following policies, procedures, norms, law, facts.

That's such a very, yeah, it's a very good point. It's what happens when you corrode and corrupt the Department of Justice for an extended period of time. It's a very good point. So a lot of your experience inside the Justice Department informs your reaction to this. My reaction is very much informed by the fact

that I've covered the courts as a journalist for nearly two decades. I'm sure there are folks who are watching this now who might just know through an offhand exposure to either the courts or courtroom drama that you cannot shift the burden of proof to the defendant.

Like this is basic stuff. You can't tell the grand jury to go beyond the record and assume you have better evidence than you have. Is there something just fundamentally shocking that just doesn't require extensive legal experience or knowledge

to just know how far off we are at this point in time. I mean isn't the beginning of law and order something like you know the prosecution and the police and they bear the burden of proof? I mean it's it's something very ingrained in our culture right like it's it's way beyond just first-year loss I mean, it's something very ingrained in our culture, right? Like, it's way beyond just first-year law. I mean, forget criminally, you know, being a prosecutor. I mean, if you go to law school,

and everybody, I think, has to take criminal law, you know it, right? But it's really ingrained in our culture because the idea is that the government has the power. The government holds the goods. The government holds the goods. The government has the evidence.

People, like ordinary people, I'm not talking about Jim Comey, but anyone out there, there are thousands of people charged with crimes, many of them rightfully so. I was a prosecutor, I charged many of them, but they don't have the ability to issue subpoenas

in the way that the government does, to do search warrants in the way that the government does. The government has all of that ability, which is why they have the burden of proof. I mean, it just makes sense, and it's part of our culture. So I don't think you have to be a lawyer to understand it.

And so it's really just doubly shocking that she would say something like this. I don't know if she was trying. I mean, there are certain instructions you give the grand jury about, you know, I mean, they're very standard instructions, right?

And, you know, I haven't told you all of the evidence. You know, you ask the witness, like when you put an FBI agent and you say, have you told us everything you know about this case? No, I've just answered the questions that you've asked. Like that's one standard kind of exchange that happens in the grand jury. Maybe she got confused and thought that meant I could say there's other evidence and Jim Comey will have to explain it someday. I mean, you know, again, that comes back

to at a minimum an experience and also probably just, you know, it seems like a desire to get this done at all costs. But it's, it's something that I think people for all the reasons you said, and because when you think of the government, you think of the government having the power, and that is why they have the burden of proof. One of the things when you're giving a jury address to a trial jury, not just a grand jury,

that judges will, I mean, in the middle of your jury address, will cut you off, right? They try not to interrupt you when you're giving a closing or a rebuttal, but especially in a rebuttal because the defense doesn't have a chance to come back after that, when you're giving that presentation, if you even hint at some kind of

burden shifting, which can be done in ways that you might not, it might not be intentional, you might not even realize it, but the judges are so attuned to that. They will cut you off. They will say the jury is to disregard that, which is really embarrassing. I'm not saying it ever happened to me,

but I've seen it happen. And it's both embarrassing and doesn't give a good look because you look like an overaggressive prosecutor, which is what this is. And over aggressive prosecutors are not good at what they do, usually.

And one final question. There will be a hearing this week on Wednesday, Comey is returning to court again in front of Judge Fitzpatrick. After this lacerating ruling, what will government lawyers be thinking as they enter into court? How does this change fundamentally the future of this case?

I mean, it just, it, the judges, I think, were already for good reason, very skeptical of this case. And now it's gone to another level. It's not just, hmm, is this vindictive? Is this violating due process rights? Is Lindsey Halligan not properly appointed? Which are all really important legal, you know, and significant issues. But now it's, did they commit misconduct? It just takes it to a whole other level.

And I gotta say those prosecutors who came down from North Carolina to do this, when the entire office of Virginia prosecutors said, we don't want anything to do with this. I mean, I was pretty embarrassed by them doing that to begin with.

I couldn't believe that there were prosecutors who were willing to come into another office and do this. What are they getting out of this other than, I guess, maybe keeping their jobs? Although it's not like everyone in Virginia was fired. I mean, lots of people were, but they didn't fire the entire office. But maybe they actually felt this was the right thing to do. I mean, they have got to have their tail between their legs now. You know, this is just, if I were them, I would ask to get off the case now because clearly you do not wanna be defending this.

And if that means losing your job, I think this is one of those moments. Like, you know what? You did something and it wasn't great that you did it in the first place, but now if you keep defending this case,

yeah, I think you've got defending meaning supporting this case, arguing it to the judge. That's really problematic. And if I were them, I would be thinking really hard about what kind of integrity, you know, they wanna have and live with

and their own professional responsibility, possible violations. I'm not saying they've committed them yet because maybe they, you know, I'm gonna assume for now they didn't know exactly how this went down, but now they know and I would not want to be them defending

this. Well we'll see how they react. I'll be in the courtroom on Wednesday reporting their, what they say to the judge, what the judge says to them, what Comey's lawyers say in court. Thank you so much Mimi Vroka for breaking it all down. We will also see there's a pending ruling. Judge Curry from South we've been discussing. For folks who want to find out more of our reporting, visit www.allrisenews.com.

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