FURIOUS Judge TEARS INTO Trump DOJ over Missing Grand Jury Docs

Welcome to a special edition of Legal AF. And as promised, sometimes we're not just reporting, we're in the courtrooms reporting in real time for events that happen. Like when Adam Klossfeld of All Rise News goes all the way to Alexandria, Virginia

to report on what just happened in the last few moments in front of Judge Curry, a South Carolina federal judge sitting by assignment in Virginia about whether Lindsey Halligan, Donald Trump's handpicked insta prosecutor

lives or dies as a prosecutor. Did the Trump administration violate section 546 of the Vacancy Reform Act because they appointed one too many interim US attorneys? And if so, what happens to the indictments of both Letitia James, New York Attorney General, and James Comey, the former FBI director?

What is the remedy if the judge were to find off the hearing today that Lindsay Halligan was improperly appointed? Who becomes the U.S. attorney? What happens to the indictment? How much of this got discussed in court today? And somebody like Adam Klossfeld able to pick up from the questions that were asked and the responses from the two sets of lawyers arguing the motion

in front of one federal judge. I don't know of anybody better than Adam Klossfeld to answer those questions for our audience and brief them. Adam, how are you?

Doing well, Michael, instant prosecutor. That's a good one. I'm gonna pick that one up. I'm gonna keep that.

You can keep it. It's a windy day in Alexandria, Virginia at the courthouse. Tell us what happened and how turbulent it was for the Trump administration inside the courtroom.

Yes, turbulent inside and outside the courtroom. I'm gonna start with the top line right up front. What the biggest headline that I'm seeing here today, aside from the fact that the Trump administration should be very nervous before Thanksgiving, and that James Comey might have a very happy Thanksgiving, is that there is a missing portion of the grand jury transcript. By which I mean Judge Curry, before today's hearing on whether Lindsey Halligan would be

disqualified, demanded to see the grand jury records. And there was a dog that hasn't barked, if to borrow the language of the Epstein emails, and that is that from four twenty eight p.m. what happened in that grand jury room in the James Comey case

from four twenty eight in the afternoon to the return of the indictment

in overtime, as was previously reported. So our

two and a half two and eight the the the the

True bill doubled true. Well a number of true bills were returned by about

657 p.m. So that's 428 until 657. There's no transcript

There is no record of what lindigan told those grand jurors for those more than two hours, where she just persuaded by a razor-thin majority for them to return true bills on two of the three charges. So this goes to a very important thing. If the judge finds that Lindsey Halligan was improperly appointed, it goes to remedy. Remember, we've been speaking before I went down to Alexandria, Virginia. We thought that a fault line of this hearing, the fact that she had requested the grand jury materials

was a sign that she is already thinking of remedy if she finds that Lindsey Halligan was improperly appointed and I have a handful of notes here in my notebook of the very important Exchanges throughout the hearing but suffice it to say she said she would rule before Thanksgiving And things ended on a very rough note for the government. She called them out on the missing grand jury materials and it's not

Stop right there. Did she indicate why she needed, you know, we've always been speculating and you and I went over, I mean, for our audience to do the statutory analysis under 546 and the undisputed factual record, there was a US attorney January 20th who resigned. There was an interim US attorney named Eric Siebert who was appointed under 546. He was fired. There was another US attorney named Lindsey Halligan that was appointed. These are undisputed facts. And if you just look at the statute, the judge either interprets the statute the way that James Comey and Letitia James wanted to interpret it, which I think is the right way, or she

interprets it the wrong way, the way the Department of Justice is. Why did she need the grand jury? Do you have any better idea why she asked for that material?

Absolutely. And it goes to a key legal issue here, ratification. Remember, on October 31st, on Halloween, you had Pam Bondi retroactively saying I ratify what Lindsey Halligan did in the grand jury room. And she said, and I quote, it became obvious to me that the attorney general could not have reviewed the portions of the grand jury. So how could grand jury grand jury materials because she said

there is that missing section that I did.

How did Pam Bondi ratify if she didn't know what she was ratifying?

Absolutely. So it seemed that we because we puzzled over this before we've spoken about this both on some stack. We've spoken about this on the Legal AF YouTube channel, and we were wondering, these are pure legal issues. Why look for the grand jury materials? Is she looking for some sort of misconduct? But it goes to an even more fundamental point. On October 31st, Pam Bondi said that she is ratifying the work of her first-time insta-prosecutor, as you put it, who would be decreed retroactively bending the space-time continuum as a special

attorney instead of an interim US attorney if the court finds, as Samuel Alito said in the 1980s, you can't have two interim US attorneys back to back. If she finds that was unlawful, you have the government's position by Henry Whitaker is that's a paperwork error. That's a paperwork error. And the-

Wait, wait, wait, stop. What's the paperwork error? The backdated Pam Bondi or the missing grand jury?

Is the signature by the indictment signer, essentially.

Oh, that's clerical. Let's paint the picture like you're a courtroom sketch artist. This was supposed to be a consolidated motion put together, both James Comey and Letitia James, very similar, not identical arguments to have Lindsay Halligan disqualified. Did both sets of lawyers for Comey and Letitia James argue?

Yes, so for James Comey, you had a Friar McDowell doing oral arguments. You had Abby Lowell do oral arguments for James. We didn't get any kind of view about what the Letitia James grand jury was like, to do oral arguments for James. We didn't get any kind of view about what the Letitia James grand jury was like,

other than the fact that the judge did confirm it was only Lindsey Halligan in the room for both of them.

That could be crucial. So how did it go? How did it go? Did it go, who led off on their motion? And then walk us through, did it go Comey lawyer, James lawyer, government lawyer, rebuttal,

rebuttal, how did it work? Just as you predicted right there. So let me set the stage exactly like that. The first words were from James Comey's lawyer, Efrain McDowell, and I have his first words really set the stage. I'm gonna read them out loud right now. This prosecution should be dismissed with prejudice because of a fundamental defect. Since the founding of our nation, US attorneys have been confirmed by the Senate.

And he went in through the history. There was actually a kind of parallelism at the end and it was something that really showed that the government is in trouble here where you had uh, one of the attorneys I believe for I think it was uh abby lull for

Letitia james Uh recite something about the purpose of the it was she was reciting Supreme Court precedent on an appointments clause case. And he read out, the clause is a bulwark against one branch of government aggrandizing itself at the expense of another branch. But it's farther than that. It goes to the structural integrity of the Constitution. The second part of the quote, I don't have exactly. But when he announced that, when he recited that Supreme Court precedent, Judge Perry chimed in, that was Justice Rehnquist. She

recognized it immediately and she said...

What happens when you're a senior status judge appointed by Clinton? You remember things

like who Chief Justice Rehnquist is. Absolutely, but she ended it on that note. And a note about the precedent being, what's the purpose of this? What's the purpose of the appointments clause? What's the significance of it in our constitutional order? She ended it on that note with an additional note by saying that she is expecting to rule before Thanksgiving.

That's why I told viewers that it could be a very happy Thanksgiving for James Comey based on what I saw.

And Letitia James too.

Why not Letitia James?

And Letitia James too. We will see. I would say that arguments went well for both of them, both of their defenses. I would say that on the Comey case, there's that added, you know, demerit for the government

that there is that missing section of transcripts.

So did she got the grand, the Judge Curry, Judge Curry got the transcripts of the grand jury proceedings for both Letitia James's mortgage fraud indictment and James Comey on lying to Congress, right? I just wanna set this up.

Correct, correct.

And the missing, and just to be clear, the missing piece is the missing piece from the two hours of James Comey's grand jury indictment process, right?

That is correct. We didn't get too much insights into what happened, any additional insights, I should say, into what happened during the Letitia James grand jury process except for the fact that in both instances one prosecutor in the room who has only been in a room

like that twice in a row. And did the government argue as a fallback even if you were to find that Lindsey Halligan was improperly appointed under 546, the remedy should not be the dismissal of the indictments?

Yes. And that's why you had Henry Whitaker, the AUSA, saying repeatedly, this is just a paperwork error. This is just a paperwork error. And so it was something that was very much the early part of the arguments to Judge Curry, very soft spoken judge. She she lets the lawyers speak. And there was just a very sharp turn at one point when the government was speaking. And she said, let's cut to the chase if you are wrong.

Right. And the and the appointments clause.

I rule against you. wrong. And the appointments clause. I rule against you.

Yeah. Is it? Let's talk about ratification. That's when she brought out. That's when she brought out the fact of what happened in the grand jury materials. I think that that was a very eye opening moment. That was a mic drop moment. It was another mic drop moment when she pointed out the stirring

quote about the meaning and purpose of the appointments clause and recognizing the justice

that wrote that language. Did she get into a debate on the, or a dial, not debate, because she's always going to win that debate. Did she get into a colloquy or a dialogue with the lawyers for the government or otherwise about the Trump position that he can just keep extending these 120 day appointments after Lindsey Halligan. There can be five more Lindsey Halligans. He never has to go to the Senate. He never has to get an actual confirmed US attorney in one of the 93 districts. Did that come up in the courtroom with the judge participating?

I will say that there wasn't a real standout moment with the judge pressing the government on that issue. The defense attorneys brought that up again and again, that it would basically swallow up. It would be an exception that would swallow the rule of appointments that they could do that indefinitely.

There was a more telling colloquy that I'll point out where she, and this was another mic drop moment in her colloquy with the government in particular. She asked the government, do you believe the United States versus Trump was wrongly decided by which she was referring to the classified documents case. Because her amendment, exactly, that Judge Cannon ruled that Jack Smith

was improperly appointed. She put the government in a bind in that moment because, yeah, you can spell it out.

Let's roll it back for a minute for our audience to catch them up. The ratification issue is Bondi panicking at last minute and on Halloween with the document you described trying to backdate and ratify and call and say even if she's not a U.S. Attorney interim, she's at least a special attorney that I have appointed with a footnote without Senate confirmation and without a confirmation

process through the Senate, but so that makes it okay. So in the Trump case, there's so many Trump US cases that we could talk about, but in the one you're talking about, Judge Cannon in the Southern District of Florida ruled for the first time in 200 years effectively that a attorney general could not appoint a special attorney in that way. It had to go through Senate confirmation,

which of course, Lindsey Halligan did not. Is that where they were going?

She was going- That's where she was going, absolutely. I said, so when she put Assistant U.S. attorney Whitaker on the spot there, Whitaker had to say that, well, it's certainly not controlling because, as you noted, Southern District of Florida, even if it went out on appeal, that wouldn't be

her circuit. But it says, you know, I mean, imagine imagine for a moment that Henry Whitaker responded, yes, Judge Cannon got it wrong. The case against Donald Trump should not have been dismissed.

That would be the last moment for Whitaker in the Department of Justice, I assure you.

Absolutely. So he capably danced around that question, but it just showed the, she showed the contradiction there.

She's saying, here you go. Let me ask an inside baseball question. When I've been an advocate in front of a judge at an oral argument or hearing, and so for the purposes of our audience, we always like to teach, have a teachable moment too. These issues are fully briefed. There were not only briefs, there's the moving papers,

which is the initial brief, the government, with two sets. The government does an opposition to those two sets. That's one more brief. Then there's a reply brief by the parties bringing the motion. So you've got that set.

In addition, you've got what we call amicus briefs, friends of the court briefs, which Curry has allowed from various parties on various issues, former federal judges, former US attorneys, former members of Congress, all weighing in on the side of the defense

about how bizarre, peculiar, and illegal, and unconstitutional Lindsey Halligan as a prosecutor is and the actual vindictive prosecution. So she gets all that together. That's all read. That's all briefed. And a week or two later, the judge then holds, if they want, they can do it on the papers, but they then hold a hearing. In the world of motions, we call it a hearing. In the world of appellate appeals, we call it oral argument. So you have the hearing.

That's what Adam is reporting on. For those that are tuning in late or coming in in progress, Adam has not been thrown out of his apartment. Adam is in front of the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, reporting in real time about this momentous hearing involving whether Donald Trump's handpicked novice prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, is going to get bounced or not. And that's going to be decided by Judge Curry in the first order. Here's the inside baseball question. When there's the rebuttal, which is the ability for the lawyers

who brought the motion to get the last word. You usually argue the things you think may, either the judge is confused by based on her questions or where you've been hurt in some way a little bit or at least something you feel you need to address. You don't have a lot of time.

You pick a couple of points that you think you need to address or you say, if you think you're doing that great, you just sit down and say, no rebuttal, your honor. I assume there was a rebuttal. I assume there was a rebuttal. What, from your observations in the room, what did you pick up from where you think the defense thought they needed to do some cleanup?

Well, here is a funny story. So I don't think that there was a necessity for cleanup, but I think there was an opening that Abbey Lowell loved to take. During Henry Whitaker's time of answering questions, he argued in essence that if Lindsay Halligan was a private citizen in that grand jury room, she would not be subject to grand jury secrecy rules. And you could almost see Abbie Lowell falling out of his chair at that moment, because as you know from having interviewed Anna Bauer at a law fair, that's exactly what

Lindsay Halligan is accused of doing when she reached out to a reporter during the, in the Letitia James case, violating grand jury secrecy rules by alluding apparently to a grand jury matter. There's a pending motion on that. So Abby Lowell couldn't wait during rebuttal to come back and point that out. You can, it's just one of those moments you had to have seen it in the courtroom.

Letitia James was not in the courtroom.

But it was, so it was one moment where it was a very wisely used rebuttal.

Henry Whitaker left that opening and Abby Lowell was all too eager to take it. Let me wrap this up with your observations in the courtroom. How active was James Comey in his own defense in terms of note writing or talking to his counsel and how active was Lindsay Halligan in the room? And I think that's sort of a rhetorical question. I mean, it's life or death for her. She's never said a word in any hearing,

even though she's the one that's signing everything. No career prosecutor would back her. She had to reach out for those that are joining the story in progress. She couldn't even use a career prosecutor in her own office that she's the head of.

She had to reach out to like North Carolina and where'd this guy come from, Missouri?

Right, right. I mean, not from the Eastern District of Virginia. It was a very, and that was a key part of the world.

Yeah. I think he's Missouri and the other two for Letitia James or North Carolina. But what did you see in terms of the activity of Comey in the room? You know, he's a lawyer. He was the US attorney for the Southern District of New York and then talk about what you observed with Lindsey Halligan.

Well, both spoke in court an equivalent amount, zero. They all let their lawyers do the talking. She did not even personally register an appearance. You might remember the first time she was ever in court and the attorneys were registering their appearances They she did it wrong. Everyone else was saying, you know lemon for the united states henry whitaker for the united states She just said lindsey halligan this time. She didn't botch it because she let someone else register her appearance

But was she writing notes? I mean what?

She would so Comey was very calm. You could see her Being more engaged and speaking to the other prosecutors and You know, she seemed Let's put it this way James Comey seemed like someone who was very comfortable with what he was seeing.

Lindsey Halligan, not so much.

Well, listen, she's got to be scared witless by her, that's my phrase. She's got to be scared witless by being prepped to within an inch of her life by Maine Justice and Pam Bondi and even probably Donald Trump before she got in there. And Whitaker too. I mean, they're all so tightly wound because if they say one thing, if the argument goes awry, their careers could be extinguished, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And it was, as I said, at first, you could see that Judge Curry was letting everyone speak. She let the defense speak, she let the government speak. And then there was a moment where she said, let's cut to the chase, and she went to the key issue at the heart of it. And it just isn't looking good for the government.

We will see where she finds on the remedy. That's the key issue here.

And the remedy for audiences, whether she's going to dismiss the indictment or not, which of course, if she doesn't there, there is another motion that is not going to be argued in front of her, but in front of the two judges, she's a specialty judge just for this one issue

because of the potential conflict of the other judges of the Eastern District of Virginia. Because if Letitia James and James Comey are right about their analysis, then the entity that picks the next replacement for Lindsay Halligan are the judges of the Eastern District of Virginia. So the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the big boss of the Eastern District of Virginia. So the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the big boss over the Eastern District, and the Chief Judge Diaz, picked a judge outside of even Virginia, South Carolina, to sit by special designation to hear

this. But back to everything else in the case, leading to the trials in less than two months or so, are going to be handled by Judge Nackmanoff for Comey and Judge Walker for Letitia James. And they have pending before them killer motions to kill the indictment on vindictive and selective prosecution.

So that will then revert, even if this survives, they then in the month of November, early December, because this case is going to trial in January Before Chris so that's before Thanksgiving for judge Curry before Christmas The other motions are gonna have to be ruled upon if if there's a need That's why curry needs to do it quick because if she somehow keeps the indictments alive

Then the other judges have to spring into action and decide what to do with the indictments under their own motions, right? Absolutely. As a matter of fact, the courtroom right behind me right now, the Albert V. Bryan Courthouse, there will be another hearing next week on the motion, on other motions to dismiss. This is just dedicated to disqualification. I'm going back. Yeah. So great. So I will be here again, probably getting my hair mussed up by this heavy wind in front of Courthouse Square to report live what I hear inside.

It's good. You're like CNN reporting from Islamabad or Baghdad. It's good. Like Richard Engel. Richard Engel used to always have his hair flying in the wind during a major news story. The bigger the wind, the more the news story. So to wrap up for our audience, we had a number of mic drop moments as Adam Klossfeld has reported for all rise news

and for Legal AF, including the case of the curious case of the missing grand jury transcripts, two hours missing, forget the Nixon 18 minutes, two hours missing of grand jury proceedings related to James Comey, which the judge was none too pleased about as she tries to get to the bottom

of whether Lindsey Halligan was properly appointed. Sounds like from what your observations are for our audience joining, for what Adam's observations are as an insider watching from the inside the courtroom. This was not a great day for the Halligan Trump side of the argument, a better day,

much better day for the Comey-Letitia James side. And we're going to get this ruling before Thanksgiving because that's what Judge Curry promised, right, Adam?

That is correct. She is hoping to get this done before the holiday. So we'll hear soon.

Right, and tune back in here to Legal AF on Substack Live for all rise news with Adam Klossfeldt and everything, all the kind of update that you want in this story, you're gonna get like no other here on Legal AF YouTube channel. Take a minute, hit the free subscribe button,

come over to Legal AF Substack. Come over to Adam Klassfeld's All Rise Substack. Paid memberships keep us on the air. Keep Adam on Amtrak going to Virginia for hearings and reporting from inside the room so you're getting it firsthand and we really appreciate you reporting on the fly like this outside the courtroom, Adam. Thank you for doing it.

Thank you.

Talk to you soon.

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