CNN Journo Stunned by Trump-Picked Comey Prosecutor’s Day in Court: ‘This Was Gobsmacking!’

CNN crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz was stunned by Trump-picked interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan’s “gobsmacking” revelation at a hearing in the criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey.

The Comey case has faced challenges and perceptions of a vindictive prosecution, as well as over the manner of Halligan’s appointment and conduct of the case.

On Wednesday’s edition of CNN’s The Situation Room, anchor Pamela Brown threw to Polantz for breaking news about a new challenge in the form of a “startling” revelation about the indictment — and the dramatic scene in Judge Michael Nachmanoff’s courtroom:

PAMELA BROWN: Breaking news into CNN regarding former FBI Director James Comey in his fight to get his federal charges dismissed. Crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz is right outside the federal courthouse. Katelyn, what happened in court?

KATELYN POLANTZ: Well, a startling discussion. Less than one minute of time passed with no silence in this courtroom, as the judge was able to ask the question and got the Justice Department to admit the final indictment that James Comey now faces, the former FBI director, it was never shown to the full grand jury in this courthouse, and they did not approve it in full.

They had voted down indicting Comey, because they had been asked to approve three different charges against him. That indictment was a no from the grand jury, and then there was no further discussion with the prosecutors to bring about the indictment Comey now faces.

I want to lay this out a little bit more, because I’m sure there will be many legal analysts to talk about this. The judge didn’t make any final determinations about the case. And there will be more arguments about this.

But what happened in court was that Judge Nachmanoff, after there were many arguments about Donald Trump directing the Justice Department, whether he had, whether Lindsey Halligan, the prosecutor here, had acted on her own accord to decide to bring this indictment against Comey, Judge Nachmanoff, he began asking the prosecutor to explain why the documents in this case look the way this is, why there was missing time in the grand jury transcript.

And things got very intense very quickly. They put on the husher. Both defense team and the prosecution team started whispering to each other very vigorously. And then the judge asked the question: “The operative indictment in this case, that document was never shown to the entire grand jury?”

That is when Tyler Lemons, the prosecutor, standing next to Lindsey Halligan, the U.S. attorney who was also seated at a council table, says: “Standing in front of you right now, no.”

There was silence in the courtroom. Judge Nachmanoff sat back in his chair. He looked down. He flipped pages that were in front of them and then he asked again and stopped Tyler Lemons from answering, called Lindsey Halligan up to the podium. And she also confirmed: “No, Your Honor,” that the foreperson in open court was the person who had signed the final indictment against Comey.

This was the very end of the arguments, the full set of arguments. This was like an additional thing the judge wanted to talk about. And so right after this, the defense counsel for James Comey, Michael Dreeben, and he stood up and he said: “It appears the operative indictment in this case was never shown to the grand jury and was never returned.”

That is the conclusion that they should draw, at least on the defense. He’s trying to argue to the judge that this is an invalid case and should be outright dismissed. There’s going to be more arguments in writing over this by today at 5:00. That was what the judge began to set up.

But we are going to see how this plays out, because this is a bit of new information that was very unexpected today and really changes the entire tenor of our understanding of this case and the fight that James Comey’s team can bring to it as they try to get it tossed out of this federal courthouse.

BROWN: I mean, this is a big revelation, Katelyn. I have — have you ever heard of this happening before? I know we have covered DOJ, grand juries for many, many years. I have never heard of a full grand jury not seeing a full indictment.

POLANTZ: No, but I will say, Pam, the judge did tell both parties they needed to look up a particular case in a different district because something in that case law may shed light on how they should interpret this new information.

But this was a moment in court — I have been in a lot of these hearings in politically charged cases over the years. This was gobsmacking. It was absolute silence. I have said before in this case that there have been moments where people gasped, but this was — you could see the entire room shift.

And from then on, this was the only thing that was — that was mattering in that case. This is the only thing that the judge and that others were talking about as they wrapped it up towards the end. I mean, one of the things too that was very surprising about this is how much this argument went back to Lindsey Halligan.

We have never seen her speak at the podium before. And there was discussion. At one point, the judge even asked, is she a puppet? Is she a stalking horse of Donald Trump just sent in to bring this case? And the prosecutors kept saying, no, she was making decisions on her own.

She was even nodding very vigorously about that sitting at the prosecution table. But then, when she stood up to address the judge and confirmed what he then had on the record, that the full grand jury did not return this indictment, she was — she seemed to be in quite an unhappy mood. She was very short with him.

Watch above via CNN’s The Situation Room.