Is James Comey About To Walk Free? Not So Fast

All of this understandably led to speculation that the Comey indictment was on life support. I saw the same reports floating around yesterday and even started drafting a piece myself — but I held back, because everything we had came from secondhand accounts of what was said in the courtroom. The available filings didn’t yet paint a clear picture.

And it’s a good thing I waited. After the hearing, the DOJ filed its objections to Judge Fitzpatrick’s order requiring disclosure of grand jury materials, and then — earlier today — submitted a notice correcting the record. Taken together, those filings make it clear the grand jury did, in fact, return a true bill on two counts, exactly the ones spelled out in the indictment.

The confusion stemmed from the fact that prosecutors originally presented three counts. The grand jury declined to indict on the first one, but did indict on the second and third. The indictment was then adjusted to remove the rejected count, elevating the remaining two into the official charges — and that amended two-count indictment was properly signed by the foreperson, with another juror present. (The rest had already headed home for the day.)

In short: the indictment is real, it’s intact, and despite the wishful thinking in certain corners, it isn’t going anywhere.

If you want an even more thorough explainer on this, I highly recommend checking out Techno Fog’s Substack on it, though it does require a subscription. But the long and short of it is, yes, there was a bit of an irregularity here, but it was as to form, not substance. And no, it shouldn’t prove fatal to the indictment.

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