In
2017,
Deputy
Attorney
General
Rod
Rosenstein
produced
a
letter
purporting
to
fire
FBI
Director
James
Comey
for
being
too
mean
to
Hillary
Clinton.
“The
Director
laid
out
his
version
of
the
facts
for
the
news
media
as
if
it
were
a
closing
argument,
but
without
a
trial,”
he
tut-tutted
over
Comey’s
press
conference
explaining
his
decision
not
to
prosecute
the
presidential
candidate.
“It
is
a
textbook
example
of
what
federal
prosecutors
and
agents
are
taught
not
to
do.”
Eight
years
later,
Trump’s
personal
lawyer
indicted
James
Comey
for
being
mean
to
Hillary
Clinton.
Because
history
may
not
rhyme,
but
it
does
echo
…
in
the
stupidest
way
possible.
Then
as
now,
absolutely
no
one
was
fooled.
In
2017,
Trump
raced
to
confirm
on
television
that
he’d
fired
Comey
to
end
the
investigation
into
his
campaign’s
ties
to
Russia.
In
2025,
Trump
brayed
for
and
then
celebrated
the
charges
against
his
enemies
without
bothering
himself
too
much
about
the
nature
of
the
supposed
crime.
“JUSTICE
IN
AMERICA!”
he
screeched
on
social
media,
celebrating
the
indictment
of
“one
of
the
worst
human
beings
this
Country
has
ever
been
exposed
to”
for
“various
illegal
and
unlawful
acts.”
The
nature
of
those
“various
illegal
and
unlawful
acts”
was
entirely
beside
the
point.
By
this
morning,
the
president
seems
to
have
figured
out
that
“HE
LIED!”
about
something,
although
what
he
did
not
specify.
“James
‘Dirty
Cop’
Comey
was
a
destroyer
of
lives,”
he
ranted.
“He
knew
exactly
what
he
was
saying,
and
that
it
was
a
very
serious
and
far
reaching
lie
for
which
a
very
big
price
must
be
paid!”
As
of
this
writing,
no
bill
of
particulars
has
been
docketed,
and
the
public
still
does
not
know
“exactly
what
he
was
saying.”
The
general
consensus
is
that
the
“materially
false,
fictitious,
and
fraudulent
statement”
undergirding
the
18
U.S.C.
§
1001
charge
is
Comey’s
denial
that
he’d
authorized
his
deputy
Andy
McCabe
to
speak
to
journalists
about
the
ongoing
investigation
of
Hillary
Clinton.
McCabe
spoke
off
the
record
to
the
Wall
Street
Journal
about
the
ongoing
FBI
inquiry
into
Hillary
Clinton’s
emails
for
an
October
13,
2016
article
by
Devlin
Barrett.
He
testified
that
he’d
gotten
the
greenlight
from
his
boss,
although
it’s
possible
to
read
what
McCabe
said
as
implying
that
Comey
had
blessed
the
disclosure
after
the
fact.
Comey
said
he
didn’t
recall
that,
and
a
2018
inspector
general’s
report
suggested
that
Comey’s
account
was
probably
closer
to
the
truth.
When
the
DOJ
tried
to
indict
McCabe
for
the
lie
in
2019,
it
got
no-billed.
In
short,
there
will
never
be
a
way
to
prove
beyond
a
reasonable
doubt
that
Comey
was
lying
to
Congress
in
2020
when
he
said,
“I
can
only
speak
to
my
testimony.
I
stand
by
the
testimony.”
That
is
almost
certainly
why
Erik
Siebert,
the
highly
competent
career
prosecutor
Trump
installed
as
US
Attorney
for
the
Eastern
District
of
Virginia,
refused
to
seek
an
indictment.
But
with
the
clock
ticking
on
the
five-year
statute
of
limitations,
Trump
pushed
out
Siebert
last
Friday.
By
Monday,
Trump’s
personal
attorney
Lindsey
Halligan,
an
insurance
lawyer
from
Florida,
had
been
sworn
in
as
his
replacement.
Lacking
any
prosecutorial
experience
or
ethical
scruple,
Halligan
raced
to
indict
the
president’s
enemy,
bootstrapping
on
an
obstruction
of
Congress
charge
for
good
measure.
The
grand
jury
rejected
a
third
charge
involving
another
purported
false
statement,
although
Halligan
reportedly
signed
both
the
rejected
and
accepted
indictments
and
handed
them
to
the
duty
judge.
The
case
was
assigned
to
Judge
Michael
Nachmanoff,
a
Biden
appointee
who
spent
13
years
as
a
federal
public
defender
in
EDVA.
The
case
is
set
for
arraignment
on
October
9,
where
Halligan
will
face
off
against
Patrick
Fitzgerald,
one
of
the
most
storied
prosecutors
in
modern
history.
Hilarity
will
no
doubt
ensue.
The
defendant
remains
defiant.
The
greatest
trick
the
devil
ever
pulled
was
making
liberals
root
for
James
Comey
again.
And
all
it
took
was
breaking
the
DOJ.
Liz
Dye lives
in
Baltimore
where
she
produces
the
Law
and
Chaos substack and podcast.