JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Former FBI director James Comey was back in federal court today in connection with the criminal case against him. That prosecution, which was brought by the Trump Justice Department, faces a number of legal challenges and is looking increasingly shaky. NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas is here in the studio with more. Hi.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Hi there.
SUMMERS: Ryan, so Comey is facing false statements and obstruction charges, but sounds like there are really some increasing questions about the government's case. You were in court today. Tell us what happened.
LUCAS: Well, the big news out of today's hearing revolves around the indictment against Comey. The new acting U.S. attorney, Lindsey Halligan, presented this case to the grand jury back in September. She initially sought three counts against Comey, but the grand jury rejected one of those. So in the end, Comey was indicted on two counts - the two you mentioned - false statements and obstruction.
But there have been questions about how all of this went down. And so in court today, prosecutors acknowledged that the full grand jury never saw the final indictment against Comey. Halligan acknowledged under questioning that only the foreperson and one other grand juror saw it. The government described this as little more than a paperwork error, but Comey's attorney strongly disagreed. He said this means there is no indictment, and he said this is grounds to have the case dismissed. The judge certainly sounded concerned about this grand jury issue. There are questions about the validity of the indictment itself. The judge didn't say how he'll handle this, but this is certainly big-time trouble for the government and its case.
SUMMERS: And there were other questions raised about the grand jury process just this week, right?
LUCAS: That's right. A magistrate judge earlier this week took the unusual step of ordering the government to turn over all of the grand jury materials to Comey's defense team. That judge said there's a pattern of what he called profound investigative missteps in this case, and he said that the integrity of the whole grand jury process could have been, might have been tainted. And he said that those raised questions about prosecutorial misconduct and are, again, potential grounds for tossing the case.
SUMMERS: I mean, these certainly seem like major setbacks for the Justice Department in the case against Comey. So what happens next?
LUCAS: Well, the amazing thing is that today's hearing was actually centered on another legal challenge to the case. Comey's arguing that this is a vindictive prosecution - that Trump is using the Justice Department here to go after a very prominent enemy. And Comey's attorney, Michael Dreeben, pointed to a social media post by President Trump just days before Comey was indicted, demanding that the Justice Department prosecute Comey. Dreeben said the record here is, quote-unquote, "crystal clear." The Justice Department says, no, Halligan is not a puppet. They say that she acted independently. It's worth remembering that Halligan is a former White House aide, former insurance lawyer. She has no prosecutorial experience, and she was appointed - pardon me - days before she secured this indictment.
Now, the judge did not issue a ruling today on these issues. We are waiting for a ruling on this and on a separate motion challenging the legality of Halligan's appointment. But the bottom line here, there are several significant challenges to the government's case and the validity of the prosecution, and any one of those could doom this case before it ever gets to trial.
SUMMERS: NPR's Ryan Lucas, thanks.
LUCAS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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