Trump’s DOJ Fires No. 2 Prosecutor in Virginia After He Refused to Lead Comey Case: Report

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File

The number two prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has been fired after he refused to lead the Department of Justice’s next attempt to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, according to a report by MS NOW.

The original case against Comey had been widely panned as lacking in legal merit, even by numerous conservatives. Many viewed the case as a politically motivated prosecution by President Donald Trump and found a series of flaws with the documents filed by the president’s appointee to head the Eastern District of Virginia office, his former attorney Lindsey Halligan.

Comey entered not guilty pleas for the two counts against him: making a false statement to Congress and obstruction of a congressional proceeding. His legal counsel, former federal prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald and experienced criminal defense attorney Jessica Nicole Carmichael, challenged the case on multiple grounds, arguing that Halligan’s appointment was improper, that the case was malicious prosecution, and that Comey was being treated differently from other similarly situated people.

Revelations about the grand jury proceedings — including that the full grand jury never saw the full indictment — led to U.S. District Court Judge Cameron McGowan Currie for the District of South Carolina dismissing the case against Comey in November.  Currie, a Clinton appointee, based the dismissal on the grounds that Halligan, the sole prosecutor who presented the case to the grand jury, was unlawfully appointed. The dismissal was without prejudice, but as Currie further pointed out, the statute of limitations expired on Sept. 30 and “there is no legitimate peg” to extend it further.

Nonetheless, the DOJ has continued to seek ways to prosecute Comey, along with another Trump foe, New York Attorney General Letitia James, whose case was also dismissed along with Comey’s over Halligan’s improper appointment.

The latest development is that prosecutor Robert McBride had been brought in to the Virginia office to “serve as a first assistant” to Halligan, but was fired “after he declined to lead the controversial prosecution” of Comey, reported MS NOW’s Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian, citing “multiple people briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak freely.”

McBride’s résumé lists far more qualifications than Halligan, who had zero prosecutorial experience at the time Trump appointed her; the longtime prosecutor was a former Navy lawyer and then a supervisor at one of the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in Kentucky.

According to Leonnig and Dilanian’s report, their sources told them that McBride “had been asked in recent days to run the Comey case, and told top Justice officials he felt it would difficult to do that and also run the office.”

Several private meetings McBride had were additional sticking points in a DOJ obsessed with loyalty to the president:

Halligan had also recently learned that McBride held private meetings with federal judges in the Eastern District of Virginia, according to a source familiar with McBride’s removal.

That source said the meeting was convened without Halligan’s knowledge and was viewed as undermining the Administration. The offices of the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General supported McBride’s removal and the Executive Office of U.S Attorneys signed the paperwork to remove him.

McBride “also was suspected of gunning for [the] top job,” Leonnig wrote in a tweet later after the report was published.

This is a breaking news story and has been updated.