Trump indictments slammed for lacking 'anything close' to 'reasonable' standards

On Friday afternoon, October 10, MSNBC reported that former National Security Adviser John Bolton is likely to become the next Donald Trump foe indicted on federal charges by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

MSNBC's reporting follows the indictments of two other Trump foes — New York State Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey — by Trump loyalist Lindsey Halligan in DOJ's Eastern District of Virginia.

Law professor and ex-DOJ prosecutor Joyce White Vance discussed the merits of Halligan's prosecutors during a Friday-night appearance on MSNBC's "The Last Word."

Vance aggressively prosecuted her share of federal cases during her years at DOJ, and she emphasized to host Stephanie Ruhle that the meticulous standards DOJ should apply in a federal case are nowhere to be found in Halligan's James indictment.

When Ruhle asked Vance if she was "surprised" that a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia indicted James for bank fraud, the MSNBC legal analyst responded, "Well, look, I think what we're seeing is a prosecutor who is willing to go into the grand jury and ask for an indictment in cases where cooler prosecutorial heads would fear to tread. This is an indictment that charges bank fraud and false statements, and it's awfully slim when it comes to facts."

Vance continued, "I have to say it's really surprising to see, for instance, an indictment that says that that the defendant, Tish James, made multiple false statements but doesn't bother to specify any of them. And when you come to bank fraud, the essence of a bank fraud case is a scheme to defraud the banks. So, the misrepresentations that she makes have to be material to getting the loan. And importantly, she has to know that they're not true at the time that she's making them. We don't see any indication in this indictment that the government has anything close to the evidence it would need to prove any of this to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt."

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