Pam Bondi Reportedly Waffling on James Comey Prosecution
Attorney General Pam Bondi is waffling over whether to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, CNN reported on Thursday afternoon.
CNN host Kasie Hunt opened her show on Thursday with the following summary of the state of play:
Right now, the clock is ticking on a possible indictment of James Comey. The statute of limitations expires today on these possible charges, and the indictment could come as soon as this afternoon. But sources tell CNN that Attorney General Pam Bondi and top prosecutors have reservations about indicting the former FBI director, who is under investigation for possibly lying to Congress in 2020.
Shortly after that, she spoke to Katelyn Polantz about the situation:
HUNT: Katelyn, you’ve been doing all this reporting for us. What are you hearing from sources about Pam Bondi, about these reservations that the prosecutors apparently have overcharging James Comey.
POLANTZ: Kasie, a decision would have to be made not just by the Justice Department, but by the grand jury as well, the secret grand jury sitting in one of those federal courtrooms in the Eastern District of Virginia on whether Jim Comey, whether there’s probable cause to charge him with perjury for lying to Congress five years ago. The decision initially, though, it does rest with those three people that Donald Trump identified: the Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and the U.S. Attorney Lindsay Halligan, who’s not even been on the job for a full week, having been put in place by Trump just recently after the resignation of another Trump appointee who did not want to bring a case against a different political opponent.
This is something that we’re watching and I say it’s fluid because we are in the final days in which the Justice Department could bring a case. Comey testified five years ago as of next Tuesday, so that’s when the statute of limitations would expire, September 30th, and there’s only so many days in which a grand jury could come into a federal courthouse, be presented the evidence, and then take the vote. Today is one of them, Friday, Monday, Tuesday, that seems to be it. We also know from our sources that there is concern in the Justice Department of the strength of this case, that Attorney General Pam Bondi has some concern, though she does believe that it would be possibility of bringing an indictment against Comey, but there is also a group of prosecutors in this case who essentially oppose it, saying that they have strong reservations about charging Comey. Whether that carries through with the grand jury, we will have to see if an indictment materializes over these next couple of days.
HUNT: Katelyn, do we have any texture in terms of what the reservations are? They just think it doesn’t merit a charge, they think they couldn’t win the case? I mean, what’s behind that?
POLANTZ: I mean, that is something that the defense attorneys in this case are probably going to have to ask very closely, and look at very closely if there is a charge brought here. But there’s a couple things just generally to potentially look at. As far as our sourcing goes, I don’t want to get into the specifics because we don’t actually know which answer Comey gave to Congress that the prosecutors are looking at to charge. And so there could be questions around the specificity of the language, how he was asked the question, how he had answered it, his intent, potentially. If he’s charged with lying, did he want to lie to Congress? And then also there’s the issue of the fact that Comey’s been investigated many times before. Is this something other prosecutors looked at, declined to charge? Why now, after these five years since that testimony? A lot of things could be a factor here in a case like this. We have seen perjury cases in the past, but Kasie, it really is such an unusual situation to have the former FBI director potentially being charged here in federal court.
Watch above via CNN.
