FBI Director James Comey testifies before the House Intelligence Committee hearing into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., March 20, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
The record of President Donald Trump’s justice department is starting to look spotty, but CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins reports Trump’s latest DOJ indictment “might be the worst case DOJ has filed in my lifetime,” according to one former DOJ official.
To a DOJ that has failed to convince multiple grand juries to go along with what critics call flagrant political prosecution, this means a lot. Last year, Trump's Department of Justice (DOJ) under then- AG Pam Bondi promised to re-indict New York Attorney General Letitia James after a Virginia grand jury has declined to return an indictment.
“It's said that you can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. Well, apparently the Trump people can't do that," CNN host Jake Tapper said at the time. Later, Trump’s DOJ failed to indict James a second time, heaping even more embarrassment upon the DOJ.
Trump’s DOJ then literally failed to indict a sandwich-related matter when a DC grand jury failed to indict Charles Sean Dunn — a former U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) paralegal who threw a Subway sandwich at a federal officer in Washington, D.C. At the time, critics called Distrcit of Columbia U.S. Attorney Jeanine Piro a hypocrite considering Trump pardoned rioters who did much more than throw sandwiches when they invaded the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
That same year, a judge deep-sixed more than one indictment when he determined that Trump administration appointee Alina Habba was unlawfully serving as the acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey and booted her. Then-AG Pam Bondi appointed and delegated a “Byzantine” triumvirate of lesser leaders, all unconfirmed by the U.S. Senate — which also got removed by judicial order.
And now comes the Tuesday re-indictment of former FBI head James Comey, for what critics call “playing with seashells.”
“I hope that Todd Blanche doesn’t have any big plans for his legal career after Trump’s term is over. Because he’s going to get disbarred for this blatantly unethical prosecution,” one critic posted on X.
'This indictment is deeply flawed,” former prosecutor Elie Honig told CNN anchor Jake Tapper.
“I remain skeptical of the accounts of the two criminal charges. This has to overcome towering free speech protections,” posted law professor, columnist and New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Turley on X. “We will have to wait to see if the administration has a ‘smoking shell’ allegation that makes Comey's shell speech more menacing as a willful and knowing threat.”