BREAKING: Magistrate orders DOJ to turn over grand jury materials to Comey

[Ocelot II]

14. Apparently there were no lapses; that is, nothing is actually missing.

But it looks like Lindsey Hooligan might have lied about the manner in which she presented the indictment to the grand jury.

What happened is that the prosecutor had presented the grand jury with two inconsistent indictments, the first with three counts and the second removing the first count. Both indictments were fully executed by grand jury foreperson and the prosecutor. After questioning the GJ foreperson the magistrate judge accepted the return of the second signed indictment, which was a new indictment that would have been presented to the GJ before being returned in open court. It now appears that may not have happened. The prosecutor stated that after the grand jury was left to deliberate on the first indictment at approximately 4:28 p.m., she had no further contact with the grand jury, and that about two hours later the acting assistant USA notified her that the grand jury returned a true bill on only two of the three counts of the first indictment. The prosecutor then went to the courtroom for the return of the indictment. The hearing on the return of the indictment began only about 7 minutes later.

The short time span between the moment the prosecutor learned that the grand jury rejected one count in the original indictment and the time the prosecutor appeared in court to return the second indictment could not have been sufficient to draft the second indictment, sign the second indictment, present it to the grand jury, provide legal instructions to the grand jury, and give them an opportunity to deliberate and render a decision on the new indictment. If the prosecutor is mistaken about the time she received notification of the grand jury’s vote on the original indictment, and this procedure did take place, then the transcript and audio recording provided to the Court are incomplete. If this procedure did not take place, then the Court is in uncharted legal territory in that the indictment returned in open court was not the same charging document presented to and deliberated upon by the grand jury.

If the Court is to read the prosecutor’s declaration as suggesting there was no contact between any government official and the grand jury after 4:28 p.m., then it begs the question of how the then-First Assistant learned that the grand jury had refused to indict on one count, and how the First Assistant knew which count had been rejected by the grand jury, all before the indictment was returned in open court.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.582135/gov.uscourts.vaed.582135.191.0.pdf

What the judge didn't say, but what I suspect happened, is that Insurance Lawyer Halligan didn't want to present an indictment that included a count as to which the GJ found no probable cause - she wanted to be able to say they'd indicted Comey on all counts. But it looks like she never actually presented the second, two-count indictment at all.