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Catherine Herridge Thinks THIS Is the (Alleged) Lie That Triggered James Comey’s Indictment

    Previously, we told you that news reports suggested that former FBI Director James Comey was about to be indicted and last night, those predictions came true. And here, you can read the entirety of the indictment:





    The cut off text:

    COUNT 2: OBSTRUCTION CONGRESS 

    18 USC 1505 

    “…did corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct and impede…”

    If you don’t want to squint, you can pull up a pdf copy of it, here:

    Basically, it is lying to Congress, triggering two different statutes—a single act can be two crimes at once and that is what is alleged, here. It is not technically perjury, although the difference between perjury and just lying to Congress is very slight—it is whether or not Comey was sworn in or not. Still, the most important allegation surrounds what he lied about, specifically, claiming that he committed the crime of lying to congress…

    …by falsely stating to a U.S. Senator during a Senate Judiciaiy Committee hearing that he, JAMES B. COMEY JR., had not ‘authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports’ regarding an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1.

    2. That statement was false, because, as JAMES B. COMEY JR. then and there knew, he in fact had authorized PERSON 3 to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation concerning PERSON 1.

    And Catherine Herridge thinks she knows exactly what the indictment is talking about:

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    The cut off text:

    @ChuckGrassley: Director Comey have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?

    @Comey: Never

    Grassley: Have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?

    Comey: No

    Grassley: Has any classified information relating to President Trump or his associates been declassified and shared with the media?

    Comey: Not to my knowledge

    Now, a sharp-eyed reader who read this author’s prior post on the possibility of charges against Comey might object and say something like, ‘But, Aaron, you erudite and handsome scholar, you man among men, you legal stud, didn’t you say that the statute of limitations is five years? So whatever Comey said in 2017 is outside that period, right?’

    Well, hypothetical person, you are right about everything, including the compliments. The statute of limitations has run for his 2017 testimony but Herridge explains how Senator Ted Cruz forced Comey to repeat his statement on September 30, 2020:

    The cut off text:

    ‘On May 3rd, 2017, in this committee, Chairman @ChuckGrassley asked you point blank, ‘Have you ever been an anonymous source in news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?’ You responded under oath, ‘Never.’ He then asked you, ‘Have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton administration?’ You responded again under oath, ‘No.’ Now, as you know, Mr. McCabe, who works for you, has publicly and repeatedly stated that he leaked information to the Wall Street Journal and that you were directly aware of it and that you directly authorized it. Now, what Mr. McCabe is saying and what you testified to this committee cannot both be true. One or the other is false. Who’s telling the truth?

    Mr. Comey: 

    I can only speak to my testimony. I stand by the testimony you summarized that I gave in May of 2017.





    So, there a few things to note here. First, Herridge clearly thinks Person 1 is President Trump and Person 3 is Andrew McCabe and if she is accurately quoting that congressional testimony, we would say she is almost certainly right.

    Second, we think Cruz was very deliberately setting a trap for Comey. Imagine hypothetically that Comey lied in that 2017 testimony. Obviously, normally we are supposed to give a person a presumption of innocence but just to illustrate how this trap would work, assume Comey was lying in that 2017 testimony. Then Comey would be in a true dilemma when Senator Cruz asked him those questions. If he continued his lie, then he would basically be resetting the clock on prosecution for lying to Congress all the way to the end of September of 2025. He might have felt good that Biden was about to win the 2020 election, but there was no way to know who might be president in 2025. But if he admitted that he lied in 2017, he could end up being prosecuted for that prior testimony, since the five year statute of limitations hadn’t passed in 2020 and Trump was still president on that day. 

    And since Senator Cruz has also worked as a lawyer, we tend to assume that he very much did that on purpose. We aren’t complaining, mind you, but we think he was very intentionally forcing Comey into exactly that dilemma because Cruz probably believed Comey was lying.

    No, because a conspiracy requires an agreement between two people. One person can lie all by themselves so it is not facially an allegation of a conspiracy. And of course it is neither sedition or treason, even if the allegations are true.





    The indictment doesn’t say it is based solely on McCabe’s word. It doesn’t tell us what their evidence is at all. Ted Cruz only had McCabe’s word in 2020, but it doesn’t follow that the indictment is solely based on that evidence. Still, in any trial, a jury is not likely to convict unless McCabe can be backed up by evidence. Otherwise, it is just ‘he said, he said’ and the jury is not likely to believe that is enough for proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But in this age of emails, text messages and the like, a guilty person is more likely than ever to leave a digital ‘paper trail.’ Even a contemporary memo written by McCabe to himself might shore up any testimony and be enough to constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

    No, at this point we have not seen any evidence. This author wouldn’t trust Comey further than he could throw him, but right now, the indictment is just a bundle of allegations. They will have to prove those allegations, beyond a reasonable doubt.

    That being said, you might notice that this was in the Alexandria Division of the Eastern District of Virginia. That is more or less what locals call ‘Northern Virginia,’ which is a roundabout way of saying ‘the Virginia side of the greater Washington, D.C. region.’ This is not quite as consumed by liberalism/leftism as Washington, D.C., but it is pretty strongly in that camp. It would be much harder to get an indictment against Comey than other places.

    One person linked to a thread in an attempt to rebut the charges against Comey and we found it interesting enough to confront it:





    Which prompted this response:

    We are not sure if Brookside is being accurate, but we find it interesting. We will also note that an OIG report characterizing what someone testified to is not the same as their actual testimony and probably wouldn’t even be admitted into evidence. In other words, the testimony that the report relied on is probably admissible, but not a report characterizing the testimony, if the courts only apply the best evidence rule and the rule against hearsay. And frankly the first pictured page actually sounds more ambiguous than Mr. Goodman seems to think. We would be curious as to what exactly McCabe said.





    We were always horrified by reports the prosecutors allegedly used the threat to prosecute Flynn’s son as leverage to win a plea deal and we believe it should be a crime for any prosecutor to do so. Still, if any crime occurred related to the prosecution of Flynn, it is almost certainly too late to do anything about it, unless someone found a way to extend the statute of limitations. Paging Ted Cruz…?

    We should presume innocence, of course, but we don’t know how anyone can say that they know for sure Comey was definitely telling the truth.

    The cut off text:

    2. “Have you ever authorized SOMEONE ELSE to be an anonymous source in news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton administration?”

    That is true, but we agree with Herridge that McCabe is almost certainly person 3 in the indictment. But he is right to say Cruz made a harmless error in his wording.

    We get a bad feeling that Comey will get free legal representation.





    It was almost certainly part of the plan in indicting Trump four times just in time for campaign season.

    Finally:

    Yep, if Comey goes down, Ted Cruz will deserve a chunk of the credit.

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