General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: BREAKING: Magistrate orders DOJ to turn over grand jury materials to Comey [View all]Ocelot II
(128,335 posts)But it looks like Lindsey Hooligan might have lied about the manner in which she presented the indictment to the grand jury.
What happened is that the prosecutor had presented the grand jury with two inconsistent indictments, the first with three counts and the second removing the first count. Both indictments were fully executed by grand jury foreperson and the prosecutor. After questioning the GJ foreperson the magistrate judge accepted the return of the second signed indictment, which was a new indictment that would have been presented to the GJ before being returned in open court. It now appears that may not have happened. The prosecutor stated that after the grand jury was left to deliberate on the first indictment at approximately 4:28 p.m., she had no further contact with the grand jury, and that about two hours later the acting assistant USA notified her that the grand jury returned a true bill on only two of the three counts of the first indictment. The prosecutor then went to the courtroom for the return of the indictment. The hearing on the return of the indictment began only about 7 minutes later.
If the Court is to read the prosecutors declaration as suggesting there was no contact between any government official and the grand jury after 4:28 p.m., then it begs the question of how the then-First Assistant learned that the grand jury had refused to indict on one count, and how the First Assistant knew which count had been rejected by the grand jury, all before the indictment was returned in open court.
What the judge didn't say, but what I suspect happened, is that Insurance Lawyer Halligan didn't want to present an indictment that included a count as to which the GJ found no probable cause - she wanted to be able to say they'd indicted Comey on all counts. But it looks like she never actually presented the second, two-count indictment at all.