Former FBI Director James Comey is about to get a huge dump of court-ordered information that could allow his legal team to destroy the criminal charges against him, legal expert Lisa Rubin told MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Thursday's edition of "Morning Joe."
The case, brought by President Donald Trump's newly-installed acting U.S. Attorney in Eastern Virginia Lindsey Halligan after the previous prosecutor refused to move forward, charges Comey with false statements and obstruction, based on testimony he gave Congress years ago about leaks at the FBI that don't appear to be false and that the indictment doesn't even quote correctly.
But they might not even have to get into the lack of merits to get the case thrown out, Rubin argued. Rather, it could be over just from discovery on what Halligan told the grand jury, as the judge presiding over the case took the highly unusual step of granting access to that information to the defense.
"Now the prosecution has until 5 pm today, Joe, to hand over all of the grand jury transcripts and materials from the investigation, as well as other evidence that was collected in prior FBI investigations that they are now trying to import into this case, to James Comey's defense," said Rubin. "That itself is a big wow moment in this case. So we're not going to lose sight of that."
"Explain the importance ofComey's team getting all ofthat evidence that they basedthe prosecution on, and whythat's going to be so damning," said Scarborough. "Most likely for LindseyHalligan, for the JusticeDepartment, for everyoneinvolved in this shamproceeding."
"Well, Jim Comey's team, one of the things that they've said has gone on here is that there was potential misconduct before the grand jury," said Rubin. "So to the extent that they get all the grand jury transcripts and the materials that were collected during the investigation, this is going to empower them to substantiate that even further by seeing what exactly Lindsey Halligan said, what exactly she showed to the grand jury, and then make a motion to dismiss on that basis as well."
The bottom line, she added, is that "if I'm Jim Comey's team, this is just yet another card that I have to potentially make this whole thing go away before we even get to the merits of the case against him."