An 'embarrassing dud': Washington Post says Trump's 'opponents should be laughing'

The Washington Post editorial board said the grand jury reviewing former FBI Director James Comey’s indictment doesn’t need to be unanimous to deliver a prosecution. This is very different from criminal court juries, which have an all-or-nothing requirement that makes nabbing an indictment easy. Despite this, they’re still having a hard time giving Trump what he wants.

“Trump’s opening indictment looks like an embarrassing dud,” the Post reports. “His opponents should be laughing more than cowering.”

The grand jury rejected as insufficient one of the counts of lying to Congress that Trump’s new prosecutor — a former Miss Colorado with less than 10 days of prosecutorial experience — delivering her a significant rebuke. Only 14 of 23 grand jurors reportedly voted to indict Comey on the two counts that were charged, barely above the 12 that were required.

Acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan then delivered to Judge Lindsey R. Vaala the charging document the grand jury rejected, as well as the one it accepted.

“This has never happened before,” the judge said. Halligan’s statement announcing the charge initially misspelled “principle” as “principal.”

It is possible prosecutors have more damning evidence that is not publicly available, but so far, the Post declares the prosecution’s case as “remarkably weak.”

It says Comey lied to Congress in 2020 about authorizing media leaks regarding “an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1,” which possibly refers to a media leak regarding the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton in 2016. Andrew McCabe, Comey’s then-deputy, admitted to leaking the information and said Comey approved of the leak in retrospect.

Comey denied approving the leak after the fact before Congress. But the Post said it’s hard to see how a discrepancy adds up to a criminal charge, especially since Comey testified only that he did not authorize the leak. McCabe’s version — that Comey basically saluted his move after it was done — does not contradict that.

“Comey’s real offense — in Trump’s eyes — is his handling of the Russia investigation stemming from Trump’s 2016 campaign,” said the Post. “That investigation badly hobbled Trump’s first presidency for no good reason, and Comey is partly responsible. But the way to settle political scores is at the ballot box, where Trump has already won.”

“This is just the beginning of Trump’s revenge tour, of course,” the Post added. “Perhaps he’ll have better luck pinning crimes on other targets.”

But the administration’s first trumped up witch hunt, said the Post, is a blundering mess.

Read the Washington Post report at this link.