The former FBI director has denied the allegations brought forward by Trump-loyalist prosecutors.
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Federal prosecutors investigating former FBI Director James Comey found that a key witness in their inquiry would be “problematic” and potentially undermine the entire case, according to a damaging leak.
Those investigating President Donald Trump’s nemesis found that testimony from Daniel Richman—a law professor whom prosecutors claim Comey authorized to leak information to the media—would contradict the claims central to the already shaky case, sources told ABC News.
Comey, who is due to be arraigned Wednesday over allegations that he lied to Congress, was charged by interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan, a Trump loyalist, even after Richman testified that Comey never authorized him to leak stories about the probe into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, according to the report.
Prosecutors investigating the allegations that Comey lied to a 2020 Senate committee about whether he approved leaks reportedly found that Richman posed “likely insurmountable problems” for the prosecution.
Halligan nonetheless pressed ahead with the case against Comey, widely viewed as the latest in a series of revenge prosecutions demanded by Trump, and asked a Virginia grand jury to indict the former FBI director.
Even Halligan’s own deputy raised concerns about the strength of the case and warned against relying on Richman, citing fears that he was a hostile witness, sources told ABC News.
Prosecutors spoke with Richman in September as part of the investigation into Comey. During interviews, Richman explicitly stated he never served as an anonymous source for Comey, sources told ABC News. Richman said Comey also advised him not to speak to the press at all about the Russiagate investigation.
Investigators even searched through Comey’s emails to find one example where the FBI director approved leaking material to the press, anonymously, but could not find any, sources told the outlet.
As noted by ABC News, prosecutors do not have to present evidence that could undermine their case during grand jury proceedings. However, such evidence must be handed over to the defendant and his legal team during the discovery process ahead of the trial.
Department of Justice officials have already privately raised concerns that the case against Comey, whom Trump fired from the FBI in 2019, was flimsy and merely part of a retribution campaign from the president targeting his perceived political adversaries.
One DOJ source told MSNBC after the charges against Comey were announced that the probe ranks “among the worst abuses in DOJ history.”
Comey was charged soon after Trump openly instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to “move now” and prosecute the former FBI director in an unhinged Truth Social rant.
Halligan’s predecessor, Erik Siebert, resigned from office after refusing to bow to pressure from the president to charge another Trump nemesis, New York Attorney General Letitia James, with disputed mortgage fraud allegations.
The Daily Beast has contacted the Department of Justice for comment.
