The full grand jury never reviewed the indictment it handed up against former FBI Director James Comey, interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan conceded Wednesday.
In a shocking back and forth, prosecutors said that instead of presenting a new indictment to the grand jury after it declined to approve one of the counts, Halligan simply brought an altered version to the magistrate’s courtroom for the grand jury’s foreperson to sign.
“The new indictment wasn’t a new indictment,” prosecutor Tyler Lemons said, attempting to justify that it was only reviewed by the foreperson.
Judge Michael Nachmanoff quickly called Halligan, who was the only prosecutor who presented the case to the grand jury, to the lectern, asking her to confirm that the entire grand jury was never presented the altered indictment.
The judge started, “Am I correct -”
“No, you’re not,” Halligan interrupted. She said that there was one additional grand juror in the magistrate’s courtroom and quoted her back-and-forth with that judge.
“I’m familiar with the transcript,” Nachmanoff said. He then told her to sit down.
Calling Lemons back to the stand, Nachmanoff asked: Am I correct that the new document was never presented to the grand jury for approval?
Lemons carefully responded, “I wasn’t there, but that is my understanding.”
Comey’s attorney Michael Dreeben then argued to the judge that, given the testimony of the prosecutor, “no indictment was returned.”
“There is no indictment,” he said, adding that the statute of limitations has now elapsed against Comey on charges of lying to Congress.
