Comey’s lawyers look to persuade judge that prosecution urged by Trump is vindictive, must be tossed

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Former FBI Director James Comey will make another run Wednesday at getting his criminal case dismissed, with his lawyers looking to convince a judge that the prosecution is vindictive and rooted in President Donald Trump’s hatred of him.

The arguments arrive as the Comey case appears freshly imperiled following a judge’s excoriation of the Justice Department on Monday and as multiple challenges to the indictment may result in its dismissal.

Comey has pleaded not guilty to charges accusing him of making a false statement and obstructing Congress and has denied any wrongdoing. He has contested the legitimacy of the hastily appointed Trump administration prosecutor who filed the case and has said he was singled out for prosecution because of Trump’s personal animus against him, an argument that will be debated Wednesday in federal court in Virginia.

Though vindictive prosecution motions are not often successful, Comey’s lawyers contend that his case should be dismissed and call it the outgrowth of the president’s hunger for retribution against the man who once served as his FBI director. Trump fired Comey from that job in May 2017 as Comey was overseeing an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Republican president’s 2016 campaign.

The two men have been publicly at odds ever since, with Trump deriding Comey as “a weak and untruthful slime ball” and calling for his prosecution.

Trump amplified his demands for Comey to be prosecuted with a September social media post in which he complained to Attorney General Pam Bondi about the lack of action against his political opponents. That night, he said he would appoint Lindsey Halligan, a White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience, to the job of interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Halligan, who replaced a veteran prosecutor effectively forced from the job after not charging Comey or another Trump foe, New York Attorney General Letitia James, secured an indictment of Comey days later as the statute of limitations on the case was about to expire.

“Ample objective evidence — much of which comes directly from government officials’ own public statements and admissions — establishes that the government’s animus toward Mr. Comey led directly to this vindictive and selective prosecution,” Comey’s lawyers wrote in a motion filed last month.

The Justice Department has denied that the prosecution was vindictive or selective and insists that the allegations support the indictment.

The arguments Wednesday are being heard by U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff. On Monday, a different judge, U.S. Magistrate William Fitzpatrick, lambasted Halligan for her handling of the case, citing what he said was a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” in the process of securing the indictment.