ABC’s Jon Karl Reports Trump’s Allies Are Privately Trashing ‘Embarrassing’ Comey Indictment

ABC’s Jonathan Karl reports that even allies of President Donald Trump consider the new indictment of former FBI Director James Comey to be “embarrassing.”

Appearing on Good Morning America on Wednesday, Karl disputed the notion — which acting Attorney General Todd Blanche himself claimed in an interview that aired on CBS Wednesday morning — that Trump did not push for Comey to be indicted.

“There is no doubt that this indictment was driven by the president himself,” Karl said. “Look, Donald Trump has made it clear for years that he wants to indict Jim Comey. As recently as three days ago, he suggested that Comey needed to be prosecuted — although he offered an entirely different reason. And Trump has put enormous pressure on the people who work for him to go after not just Comey, but a long list of his perceived political enemies. One of the main reasons that he fired Attorney General Pam Bondi is that he felt that she was not being aggressive enough in prosecuting those enemies, and Attorney General Todd Blanche knows that if he wants to be formally nominated as AG — right now he’s just the acting Attorney General — he needs to prove to President Trump that he will be more aggressive in prosecuting those enemies than Bondi was. And I can tell you this … shortly after that indictment was announced, Todd Blanche was at the White House meeting with senior White House officials.”

GMA co-anchor George Stephanopoulos followed up by asking Karl to weigh in on where the Comey case goes from here.

“The first indictment of James Comey was dismissed,” Stephanopoulos said. “Even lawyers close to the president, say that’s likely here as well.”

“I’ve been talking to current and former prosecutors, federal prosecutors who are calling this the flimsiest federal indictment that they have ever seen,” Karl said. “Even Trump’s allies are privately calling it ’embarrassing,’ or as one very prominent former Trump DOJ official told me last night, ‘depressing.'”

Karl added, “I have spoken to no serious lawyers who think these charges will result in a conviction. The near-universal view is that it will be thrown out before it gets to trial.”

Watch above, via ABC.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!