The Social World

Tag: Law

  • The Comey dismissal is a miniature constitutional crisis

    United States District Court Judge Cameron M. Currie, sitting by designation in the Eastern District of Virginia, yesterday dismissed the federal indictments against former FBI Director James B. Comey and New York attorney general Letitia James. At the crux of the court order is the judge’s finding that President Donald J. Trump’s administration unlawfully appointed Lindsey Halligan, the US Attorney who signed the Comey and James indictments.

    Taking the now familiar TDS cheap shot, the court order opens with a description of the US Attorney as “a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience.” Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi appointed Ms. Halligan as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, one of the busiest jurisdictions in the country, on September 22, 2025. Three days later, Halligan secured a two-count indictment against Comey from a Virginia grand jury. 

    Comey challenged his indictment on October 20, 2025, asserting among other concerns that Halligan’s appointment was invalid. 

    Judge Currie dismissed both cases without prejudice, meaning the US Department of Justice may re-file charges against Comey and James, at least theoretically. However, depending on which statement the Justice Department alleges forms the basis for its false statements and obstruction charges against Comey, the statute of limitations may have expired, preventing any further prosecution.

    White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the administration will appeal the dismissals by Judge Currie, a Clinton era appointee. It is by no means clear that Halligan’s appointment is unlawful or, even if it is, that dismissal of the indictment is the proper remedy.  

    First, the Judge’s order turns on an interpretation of the statute that denies the Justice Department more than one interim appointment in any US Attorney’s Office. Nothing in the text of the statute prevents the Attorney General from making serial appointments. Additionally, prior administrations, including under Presidents Clinton and Bush, interpreted the law to allow “stacked” appointments, which went unchallenged. Also, the statute is phrased in the conditional, and it habitually uses the permissive verb of “may” rather than the strict command of “shall” or “must”. 

    Second, if the statute is interpreted to allow the Justice Department but one interim appointment, there is a genuine question over the violation of the separation of powers. Every case a US Attorney files, whether criminal or civil, is ultimately tried or settled in the courtroom of a federal judge in her district. The idea that all the judges of the district who ultimately rule on the US Attorney’s cases should also hand select the US Attorney deprives the President of his authority over the executive branch, concentrates power in one branch of government in direct contraction of the Framers’ intent, and creates tremendous disincentives for prosecutorial independence. 

    Finally, the judge need not have dismissed any indictment signed by Halligan even if her appointment was lacking. The indictment was also signed by the foreperson of the grand jury, and it was the grand jury that possessed the actual authority to find that Comey violated federal law under a probable cause standard. Furthermore, the Justice Department may have a workaround to re-indict Comey under another relatively unused statute that essentially extends the statute of limitations by six months when a felony indictment is dismissed.

    The judge’s dismissal of Comey’s indictment is just the beginning. Under the logic of Judge Currie’s order, any indictment signed by Halligan alone is presumptively invalid. It would be unsurprising to see defendants challenge even those indictments where Halligan was but one of multiple noted authorities. A wave of dismissal motions is coming from other defendants indicted this past fall in the Eastern District of Virginia. Moreover, Judge Currie’s order has the potential for a tsunami effect as defendants across the country challenge their indictments in jurisdictions where other US Attorneys are presiding who remain unconfirmed by the Senate.  

    Given the very high stakes that go well beyond the Comey case, the Trump administration has no choice but to appeal Judge Currie’s order. While the federal appellate courts sort out what the intersecting federal statutes mean for who actually runs the US Attorney’s Offices nationwide, Congress should act immediately to untangle this imbroglio by amending the statutory framework for the President’s executive branch appointees. The President must possess the authority to appoint members of his own administration. Whatever role the Congress should have for advice and consent may vary from position to position, as is clear under the plain words of the Constitution itself, but in no event should the courts be appointing employees of other branches of government. The issue must be settled, not simply for President Trump’s team, but for every administration to follow. 

  • Trump inherited a weaponized justice system

    Trump inherited a weaponized justice system

    Has Donald Trump “weaponized” the justice system to go after his political enemies? The answer is no.

    “What about former FBI director James Comey?” you ask. “What about New York Attorney General Letitia James?” Both went after Trump hammer and tongs. Now both have been indicted by the Trump Justice Department. Are those not textbook cases of “weaponization,” of “retribution,” of using the power of the system to punish people who have punished you?

    Hold on. I write this in mid-October. By the time you read it, I suspect that the list of indictments will be much longer. Candidates for inclusion on this Ko-Ko-like “little list” include John Bolton, national security advisor during Trump’s first term; Jack Smith, the special counsel who managed to rack up 37 indictments against Trump in two criminal cases; and sundry other former intelligence officers and DoJ officials. The dragnet will be large; it will be relentless.

    So haven’t I just admitted that Trump weaponized the justice system?

    No. Trump didn’t weaponize the justice system. He inherited a weaponized justice system.

    More on that shortly. First, here’s another little list. Peter Navarro, Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Mark Meadows, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Jeffrey Clark and George Papadopoulos.

    That’s a very incomplete roster of Trump aides and supporters who were indicted, prosecuted, disbarred and/or jailed. The list does not include the more than 1,200 people convicted over the January 6 protest at the Capitol. Nor does it capture a contrast that Navarro describes in a post on X: “I was dragged through Reagan Airport in leg irons, mug shot, handcuffs, jail cell, the full circus. Meanwhile, Comey faces felonies up to 10 years for the worst political conspiracy in modern history, and he slips quietly through a side door.”

    Responding to demands that Comey be subjected to the humiliation of a “perp walk,” Trump’s FBI Director Kash Patel said there would be “no drama.” But the FBI that Trump inherited specialized in such drama. Remember their guns-drawn, dawn raid to arrest his confidant Roger Stone? The tipped-off media were there in force to lap up and regurgitate the entertainment.

    That’s one element of the system Trump inherited. Another has to do with the courts. Trump and his allies faced kangaroo courts, kangaroo juries and a kangaroo media. All are Democrat specialties. There are certainly places in the US where judges, or at least juries, favor Conservatives. But is there any analogue to Manhattan or Washington, DC, where the name “Trump” guarantees conviction and hectoring media obloquy?

    There is not. The cases that Letitia James and Alvin Bragg brought against Trump in New York were patently ridiculous. But had the President not won re-election he would be facing a $500 million fine, the destruction of his business empire and decades in jail, all to a hallelujah chorus of media self-congratulation.

    At the moment, that media has shifted into a minor key, not crowing but spewing threnodies about “selective prosecution,” “lawfare,” “retribution” and of course “weaponization.” Yet Trump could never deploy the sort of judicial and media vendetta that had been organized against him. Republicans lack the kangaroos.

    In March, I wrote here about deterrence, not as a feature of military strategy but as a part of political wisdom more generally. The attack on Trump and his allies, I noted, was only incidentally directed at those individuals. Writ large, it was aimed at undermining the very things they claimed to be supporting: “our democracy” and the rule of law. From that perspective, I said:

    The Trump administration’s efforts to restore fiscal sanity, accountability, and common sense to the workings of government will seem like retaliation or retribution only to those who have betrayed those values. For them, the closure of redundant or malevolent agencies, the exposure of financial wrongdoing and incompetence, the revocation of tolerance for illegal migrants who prey on US citizens will seem simply punitive. It is punitive, because it is in response to egregious wrongdoing. But in the long term, such masculine policies will function less as a punitive expedient than as a deterrent.

    The press is full of caterwauling headlines about Trump’s “vindictive,” “weaponized” prosecutions. But if you step back, such imprecations ring hollow. For one thing, as the commentator “Cynical Publius” noted: “James charged Trump with nonsense; Trump charged James with a verifiable crime.” The same is true of Comey. The same will be true of the rogues’ gallery of anti-Trumpists destined for the courts.

    After she got done running for office on a platform of suing Trump and calling him “illegitimate,” James dusted off her oratory. “When powerful people cheat to get better loans,” she intoned, “it comes at the expense of hardworking people. Everyday Americans cannot lie to a bank to get a mortgage, and if they did, our government would throw the book at them. There simply cannot be different rules for different people.”

    That was before it was revealed that James lied to a bank to get a lower interest rate on a mortgage.

    Here is the moral of the story. Deterrence works only because there lurks in the background a credible threat of retaliation. Before Trump, Republicans were too lily-livered to mount any such threat. Would it be better if an incoming administration did not set about indicting its predecessors? Yes. Which is why the President’s vigorous effort to call to account those who waged lawfare against him is a necessary purgative. If vigorously pursued, it may just reset the conventions and courtesies of our political life.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s October 27, 2025 World edition.

  • Is conversion therapy free speech?

    Is conversion therapy free speech?

    Kaley Chiles is a Christian therapist who places the Bible at the center of her practice.

    To many of her patients, religious faith is often more important than Freud. They see Bible readings, prayer and a focus on spirituality along with traditional principles of psychotherapy as essential elements of any treatment plan. 

    While outside the mainstream of psychoanalytic practice, Chiles’s technique combining traditional psychotherapy with Biblical precepts for years had been deemed non-controversial, if confined to more conservative regions of the country. But that all began to change in 2019 when the state of Colorado enacted legislation banning so-called conversion therapy for minors, a technique that aims to help gays change their sexual orientation. 

    Fearing the law would interfere with her treatment of teenage clients wrestling with their sexuality, Chiles filed suit in federal court against Colorado alleging the statute violated her First Amendment free speech rights. She lost at the trial level and in the initial round of appeals, with jurists finding that Colorado’s ban fell well within its right to regulate medical practice and protect patient safety.  

    But it now appears the US Supreme Court is leaning toward upholding Chiles’s right to advise young clients that changing their sexual orientation is a viable and realistic option, despite widespread medical and scientific agreement that such techniques rarely, if ever, work. 

    In oral arguments on October 7, the state’s conservative majority peppered both sides with questions suggesting they were leaning in Chiles’s favor. A decision upholding Chiles’s appeal would follow a string of Supreme Court rulings in recent years favoring religious conservatives while creating new hurdles for gays and transgenders. 

    Without First Amendment protections, “states can transform counselors into mouthpieces for the government,” argued James Campbell, a lawyer for Chiles, at the Supreme Court hearing. 

    The case poses novel Constitutional questions that center on ability of medical professionals to communicate with patients about treatments they believe are effective but that have been outlawed by state regulators.  

    On a deeper level, though, Chiles’s lawsuit and the legal battle surrounding it are simply the latest fight in the nation’s long running conflict over cultural values, ranging from gay and transgender rights to abortions and race relations. 

    In June, the court’s 6-3 conservative majority ruled in favor upheld a Tennessee ban on the use of puberty blockers and hormones for the treatment of young patients suffering from so-called gender dysphoria and seeking to change their gender identity. In another ruling this year, the court also upheld, on a temporary basis at least, the Trump administration’s ban on LGBTQ persons serving in the military while the litigation continues 

    And in a 2018 decision that may well have a bearing on Chiles’s appeal, the court found in favor of religious conservatives by striking down a California law requiring anti-abortion groups to provide information on state funded abortion and contraception when counseling their clients. The court found that the law infringed on anti-abortion groups’ free speech rights.   

    Reflecting the heated politics underlying the Chiles case, dozens of interest groups from both sides of the ideological spectrum have filed amicus briefs with the court. Medical societies of various stripes have been particularly scornful of Chiles’s case. One brief filed by the American Psychological Association, the American Medical Association and other organizations representing health care professionals maintained that conversion therapy rarely if ever works. It argued at the same time that the practice causes great harm to patients by further confusing them about their identity and disrupting family relations while raising the risk of suicide. 

    Conversion therapy embraces a wide range of techniques, some bordering on barbaric, including aversion therapies using electroshock treatment and nausea inducing drugs. Some 30 states have banned it. 

    Chiles and her lawyers say she would employ none of those practices and that she engages only in talk therapy. But in court filings and in interviews, they stop short of describing exactly what Chiles would tell clients seeking to change their sexual orientation, only that she might advise them on how not to act out unwanted sexual impulses.  

    “When she engages in those conversations, she’s encouraging them to achieve their goals,” Campbell said during oral arguments. “She’s discussing concepts of identity and behavior and attractions and how they fit together.”

    This is an ongoing active dialogue where she’s helping them explore their goals, and that absolutely has to be protected by the First Amendment.” 

    The state of Colorado of course sees it differently. 

    “No one has ever suggested that a doctor has the First Amendment right to offer the wrong advice,” countered Shannon Stevenson, Colorado solicitor general. “The law applies only to treatments, that is, only when a licensed professional is delivering clinical care to an individual patient. In that setting, providers have a duty to act in their patients’ best interests.” 

    During the October 7 oral arguments, the court’s conservative justices seemed supportive of Chiles’s free-speech claims. Justice Samuel Alito for one opined that because Colorado law bans discussion of conversion therapy but permits therapists to advise clients on transitioning from one gender to another, the law had clearly crossed a First Amendment red line. 

    “That looks like blatant viewpoint discrimination,” Alito declared. 

    Justice Amy Coney Barrett queried Campbell on whether clients who felt they had been harmed by conversion therapy might be able to file a malpractice claim. It was a loaded question in the sense that proponents of Colorado law argue conversion therapy is harmful and that a First Amendment protection for therapists would leave patients defenseless. 

    Bryant’s question implied that civil litigation against irresponsible therapists might serve as a brake against harmful practices. 

    Chiles’s legal team, Alliance Defending Freedom, a prominent Christian legal organization that has participated in over 70 Supreme Court cases, has packaged their client in a way that aims not only to persuade jurists but also the public at large. That is hugely important in the world of civil litigation. Having a sympathetic client is often just as pivotal as a powerful claim or even a particularly effective legal team. All the legal firepower in the world won’t help if juries and judges are put off by the claimant. 

    On its website, Chiles, who is based in Colorado Springs, is depicted in a video hiking in the Rockies near Denver while she talks on an audio track about her clients and how Colorado’s conversion therapy ban had frustrated their efforts to regain emotional health. 

    “They say that emotions are like children. It’s not OK to let them drive the car and it is not OK to stuff them in the trunk,” she says in the video. “I counsel my clients on… how to make their lives more fulfilling, satisfying and more in line with who God created them to be. What I am struggling with right now is that the state of Colorado has decided to impose their own values, not only on me but more importantly on my minor clients.” 

    It’s a well-articulated rationale by a seemingly credible plaintiff. It’s just not altogether clear, from the science at least, that her clients would benefit.

  • James Comey’s ‘knight in shining armor’ complex

    James Comey’s ‘knight in shining armor’ complex

    Former FBI director James Comey is in the news again for all the wrong reasons. He’s been indicted for allegedly lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation, which he denies. Comey’s arraignment is scheduled for October 8. Having covered every FBI director since 9/11, I’m reminded of Comey’s difficult relationship with the facts. In May, he was interviewed by the Secret Service after he posted a photo on Instagram that spelled out “86 47” in seashells. According to Merriam-Webster, eighty-six is slang for “to throw out,” “to get rid of” or “to refuse service to.” The dictionary says it originated in the 1930s, but these days to get “86’d” is widely interpreted as a threat of harm. Of course, President Trump is the 47th Commander in Chief.

    Comey, a published author, former prosecutor, and former chief law enforcement officer, claimed ignorance of the violent connotations and immediately took down the post. He should know, better than most, that in law enforcement circles, this could be seen as “consciousness of guilt” behavior. On the other hand, we have Comey to thank for one of the more inventive memes on X… photos of sandy beaches with seashells spelling out “INDICTED.” Each FBI director brings their own style to the job. Comey stood out for his carefully crafted public persona. His predecessor, Robert Mueller, was pegged as a straight arrow and seemed to embrace media interviews like a bad cold. Christopher Wray, who followed Comey, was also media averse – except when it came to friendly outlets such as 60 Minutes.

    I observed that Comey worked very hard to come across as transparent, folksy, a man of the people. I can’t recall how many “brown bag” lunches Comey hosted for journalists at FBI headquarters, but one stands out, because Comey’s ego was on full display. At that time, Loretta Lynch’s Justice Department and the Clinton campaign were insisting that the probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of an unsecured personal server for government business was “a security inquiry.” It was astonishing how many seasoned beat reporters parroted this ridiculous characterization. 

    As we sat around the FBI conference table, I put my Clinton email question to director Comey who inadvertently confirmed that the probe into Clinton’s unsecured personal server used for State Department business was, in fact, a criminal investigation. “That’s the bureau’s business. That’s what we do. That’s probably all I can say about it. I’m not going to comment, other than to say there are no special set of rules for anybody that the FBI investigates,” he said, bristling at the suggestion thathe might be playing political favorites. Yet his insistence that there was no double standard in the Clinton case has not aged well. In 2018, the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, faulted Comey’s insubordination and poor judgment in the Clinton email probe.He stopped short of accusing him of political bias.

    In August, I was among the first to report on the declassified FBI investigation codenamed “Arctic Haze.” This revealed Comey’s wide-ranging media strategy to shape the narrative about high profile cases such as the FBI’s Clinton email probe and the Trump-Russia Collusion case. Comey also used his media leak strategy to protect his reputation after he was roundly criticized in both probes for exceeding his authority. Comey even had the FBI hire his Columbia Law School friend as a “Special Government Employee” (the same status as Elon Musk) to act as a de facto PR media rep for Comey and his agenda. As one former FBI official told me over coffee, Comey has a kind of “knight in shining armor” complex and thinks “he is the only one who can save the republic!”

    I never expected Comey and President Trump would get along. There simply wasn’t enough oxygen in the room for the both of them. The declassified records suggest the indictment is connected to a 2017 New York Times report, a rather glowing and favorable revisionist history about the tough choices Comey faced in the Clinton email probe. As I read the Arctic Haze records, highlighter in hand, I felt nauseated. The New York Times was given an “investigator-level briefing” on the Clinton case over three days in March and April 2017. This is not standard practice for reporters or the FBI. The fawning coverage of Comey that followed the “investigator-level briefings” feels problematic, to say the least.

    It’s a big deal to bring a criminal case against a former FBI director. We could be witnessing a terrible act of political revenge, or long overdue accountability for James Comey. There is no question the Comey indictment is thin. The declassified records conclude there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute him for leaks. Based on my reporting from the courts, it’s worth considering that it may be a holding charge and that a superseding indictment will follow adding more counts. Whatever the outcome, you have to conclude that if James Comey had not been FBI director in 2016 and 2017, the country could be in a very different place. And less divided.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s October 13, 2025 World edition.

  • Crime and no punishment in London

    Crime and no punishment in London

    Those of us trapped in Mayor Sadiq Khan’s London are now obedient, resigned. We expect a car journey of under a mile to take 40 minutes. We don’t hope for anything more. On a recent Sunday, around five o’clock, my son and I stuck fast in Dalston Lane, but as we settled down to wait in a mist of carbon monoxide, there was a commotion up ahead. Down the wrong side of the road, horn blaring, lights flashing, came a Mercedes G-wagon, matte black with that handy snorkel up the side, the favorite ride of north London’s gangsters. It was interesting how calm everyone was about it, how unsurprised. A souped-up tank of a car coming at us head-on, and no one shouted or beeped. Each car in the line ahead pulled seamlessly to one side, like the teeth in a well-functioning zipper. They don’t shift like this for ambulances or police cars any more.

    There are cameras everywhere; the eyes of the state in the sky. Not for the gangs, though

    We all know who drives the G-wagons. There are two rival drug gangs in north London, the Tottenham Turks, aka the Tottenham Boys, and their rivals, the Hackney Turks, aka the Bombacilars. In May last year, the Tottenham Boys attempted a hit on the Bombers and a nine-year-old girl was caught in the crossfire, shot in the head as she ate ice cream just a short walk from my house. And the Tottenham Boys got away with it. Only the getaway driver, a non-Turkish stooge called Javon Riley, was ever arrested, found guilty this summer of grievous bodily harm and three counts of attempted murder. The Sun newspaper did a big feature on the gangs: “Inside the Turkish drug lords’ medieval London turf war, with shootouts and soundproof torture cells, leaving cops terrified.” When Riley was asked by the police to provide the names of gang members, and of the hitman whose bullet hit that nine-year-old, he refused. He feared for his family. The Turks are too ruthless and too effective.

    The G-wagon blared past, faded away, and we law-abiding cars crawled our way to Kingsland Road, where we were careful not to speed up. If, in the euphoria of a clear-road moment, you drive just 4mph over the 20mph limit, you’ve had it. That’s a £100 fine and three points on your license. Then there are fines for pausing in the wrong place, for turning into one of the increasing number of restricted zones, for doing a U-turn. There are cameras every-where; the eyes of the state in the sky. Not for the Turks, though. They do as they please. As I drove, I imagined all the charges piling up in the marbled hall of some gated mansion in the Edmonton area, all the court summons swept up, thrown away. It’s not two-tier justice or two-tier policing, it’s gaslighting.

    Just to enrage myself, I like to play a sort of memory game, where I pair a nasty crime that’s gone entirely uninvestigated with another minor infraction that’s been diligently, exhaustively policed. The speeding and opioid-dealing of the Turks vs minor parking misdemeanors; the virtual violence of “hateful” tweets vs the real violence on real streets.

    My favorite recent Twitter case revolves around a journalist, Greg Hadfield, who last year tried to warn the Labour party that one of its own former MPs was posting pictures of penises on his X account. Hadfield posted a screenshot of one of the tweets with a comment suggesting that Labour should have a word. As a result, Hadfield was charged himself, for passing the picture on. His crime was to “send by a public communication network an offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing message or matter,” and he has just found out that he’s lost his appeal to have the case dropped and must go to trial. The CPS made a “not unreasonable” decision to prosecute, said senior district judge Paul Goldspring. Not unreasonable! All Greg did, as far as I know, was try to prevent indecency and obscenity. I’d pair his crime in my mind with all the offensive, indecent, obscene and menacing matters that I see as I pass police-free Finsbury Park tube station on an average evening – for instance, a few weeks ago, a group of young men that looked like proper trouble: black clothes, black masks, circling like jackals. The Nextdoor app confirmed it: “If you have teenage children around Finsbury Park station, please tell them to be vigilant as there are around 30 youths masked up, robbing and violently attacking local kids.”

    “Hope the police are aware,” read one comment. “They are about as useful as a chocolate teapot,” read the next. “Why not report someone’s hurt feelings and they’ll soon show up?”

    Round the corner, the usual mental case was standing and shouting with his trousers down, groin at eye level for a nine-year-old in a car. Violent attacks on passing children and public nudity – that’s menacing and indecent, Judge Goldspring. If the police just walked up and down past Finsbury Park tube all day, they’d be earning their keep.

    I try to shield my son from the absence of policing. I want him to believe that there’s a robust and vigilant army of officers between him and criminal chaos. “Just youngsters having fun!” I say to him blithely as I lock the car doors in the Finsbury underpass. “They wear masks because they’re paranoid about germs… and that man? Well, darling, some people do just forget to put their trousers on.”

    On the main street that runs perpendicular to mine, there’s been a spate of burglaries, a youngish man smashing in through basement windows. We know it’s the same man every time because there’s footage of him in action on the Ring doorbell cameras. One neighbor offered the video to the police, but was told they couldn’t use it, that actual footage of the crime being committed wasn’t good enough evidence. See? Gaslighting.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s October 13, 2025 World edition.

  • Let the retribution begin

    Let the retribution begin

    Let the retribution begin. A federal grand jury in the eastern district of Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC, has indicted former FBI director James Comey for lying to Congress about leaking classified information to the press. During his four years at the FBI, Comey became a linchpin of the movement among Democrats in Congress and their legacy press supporters to oust Donald Trump during his first term.

    Trump never forgives and he never forgets. He’s been vocal in calling for his Attorney General Pam Bondi to bring the hammer down on Comey and applauded the departure of the acting US attorney for eastern Virginia, whom he called a “woke RINO [Republican in name only]” when he declined to seek indictments of Comey and New York State Attorney General Letitia James, another Trump scourge.

    Comey’s bizarre tendency to insert himself into electoral politics is well documented. In July 2016, as Hillary Clinton moved toward winning the Democratic presidential nomination, Comey held a press conference to announce the results of a months-long investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server, which contained hundreds of classified emails and which the FBI determined had probably been hacked by foreign governments. Despite finding that Clinton’s private server was likely to have violated the law – an apparent effort to hide her email communications from congressional investigators and the press – Comey gave Clinton a pass. “No reasonable prosecutor” would ever bring such a case, he declared, without providing much in the way of explanation. 

    Yet three months later, just weeks before the general election, Comey announced that he had found a new trove of Clinton emails and that he had reopened the investigation. The ensuing uproar changed the dynamic of the race, with Clinton having to defend herself against allegations she’d broken laws designed to protect government secrets from foreign spies. Clinton later blamed her narrow election loss on Comey’s decision to disclose the reopened investigation shortly before the election – and she was probably right in thinking so. 

    On the Republican side, no government figure was more instrumental in triggering the cascade of lawfare that overwhelmed Trump’s first term. Comey engineered a questionable criminal investigation into Trump’s first national security advisor, Michael Flynn, who was indicted on overblown allegations that he’d lied to FBI agents in a set-up interview.

    In the world of white-collar crime, such charges are tantamount to door prizes for also-ran prosecutors who fail to prove the crime that initiated the investigation in the first place – in this case, colluding with the Russians. After years of legal wrangling, Trump pardoned Flynn and the Justice Department withdrew the case. But the affair bankrupted Flynn, who had to sell his house to pay the gargantuan legal bills. And of course, his career in public service was destroyed. Later, after hinting in congressional testimony that Trump had been colluding with the Russians in the 2016 election, Comey arranged to brief Trump on the almost entirely fallacious dossier of former British spy Christopher Steele, which asserted that the Trump election campaign was working with the Russians. The Steele dossier had been circulating among a handful of reporters in Washington in the fall of 2016, but no news organizations would touch it at first, so cartoonish were its allegations. 

    The briefing solved that dilemma. Word of Comey’s sit-down with Trump was leaked to CNN, which was then able to coyly explain that the dossier was newsworthy and important because, after all, it was the subject of a presidential briefing. In the minds of many Republican voters, Trump’s transparent desire to hit back at Comey is not only predictable but a desirable outcome. After all, the Russia collusion investigation turned up no evidence that Trump or his campaign worked with the Russians to defeat Clinton in 2016, yet much of Trump’s first term was consumed with pushing back against a manufactured scandal. 

    Although the allegations were baseless, they were like catnip for the anti-Trump press. Thus, more than a few Republicans have been heard to remark about Trump’s targeting of political enemies: “Yes, this is what I voted for.” But this is an extremely shortsighted approach. Just as the Biden administration’s targeting of Trump posed grave risks for the country, so too does Trump’s singling out of political enemies for prosecution. This case seems weak, based as it apparently is on conflicting “he said, she said” accounts of what Comey supposedly did. The congressional testimony in question took place on September 30, 2020, and the five-year statute of limitations was set to run out, meaning criminal charges would have been barred after the end of last month. 

    Career prosecutors in the US Attorney’s Office for eastern Virginia and Attorney General Pam Bondi – who’s no woke RINO – all reportedly recommended against pursuing the matter. It’s not implausible that the trial judge may take a look at the evidence and dismiss the case at the outset. In law enforcement, a system driven by reprisals and a payback mentality quickly loses credibility and public trust.

    Independence and judicious application of the law without political bias are fundamental characteristics of a credible justice system. Any hope that citizens will believe the law is being fairly applied, that there is such a thing as right and wrong and that prosecutors and judges are making good-faith decisions based on the law rather than some crass election issue would soon be dashed if it becomes acceptable practice to use law enforcement as a tool for pursuing political vendettas.