"Law and Chaos Podcast" co-host Andrew Torrez discovered a flub in the legal documents filed by U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan in the Eastern District of Virginia.
In Halligan's case against former FBI Director James Comey, she was denied access to emails exchanged between Comey and his lawyer and friend Daniel Richman in a ruling announced on Saturday.
"U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly granted Comey’s friend Daniel Richman a temporary restraining order sequestering the email and computer data after Richman’s lawyers alleged that it was kept unlawfully. The restraining order will remain valid until a court rules on the validity of that claim," reported the Washington Post at the time.
On Tuesday, the DOJ filed a motion seeking the documents and claiming that the temporary restraining order against the DOJ should be dissolved.
"The government's primary argument is that Richman's Rule 41(g) motion is really a disguised motion to suppress evidence in disguise and that's improper. There's something weird about that case, though..." wrote Torrez on BlueSky.
The very first case they cite in the argument is a Third Circuit Court of Appeals opinion called Martino v. US (2024).
"Oh," he added with a screen capture of the case, revealing the bold detail: "Not Precedential."
That means the case can't be cited as binding law for future cases.
"Who could have possibly signed their name to such a thing?" asked Torrez. The screen capture showed Halligan's name.
"Yes, that's the government appending the signature of a Florida lawyer who had been previously cosplaying as the imaginary U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia two weeks after she was legally disqualified from that job. In a filing in the District of Columbia," he quipped.
The next citation, he pointed out, has been a reported opinion, but it's from a different circuit court "and is therefore not binding precedent." The filing also appears to misinterpret the decision, Torrez added. There are no pending cases against Comey's friend. In fact, there's no pending case against Comey himself, as it was thrown out over Halligan's appointment.
The third citation confirms the second, saying that they can't appeal a "denial while the ongoing criminal case against you is pending because the underlying factual issues are 'inextricably intertwined and could [cause] confusion and the potential for inconsistent rulings.'"
See the full thread here.
