In re Comey dismissal
Gray Wednesday pt. 3: Blue Monday, Black Friday
Editor’s note: This is Part 3 of the Comey Saga, “Gray Wednesday.”
Previous installments:
Gray Wednesday: Comey’s Arraignment.
Gray Wednesday Part 2: Lindsey Halligan, Puppet
On Monday, November 24, U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie dismissed lying-to-Congress and obstruction charges against former FBI Director James Comey and some bullshit mortgage stuff against New York Attorney General Letitia James, not because the prosecutions were vindictive—though they were—nor because at least Mr. Comey’s grand jury was corrupted—though it was—but because so-called acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan, “a former White House aide with no prosecutorial experience,” was “unlawfully” and “defective[ly]” appointed and “had no lawful authority to present the indictment[s].”
Two months, two trips at rainy civil twilight driving to the Eastern District of Virginia courthouse to watch justice be done, the heavens fall, et cetera, were reduced to anticlimax—I expected the conclusion to clarify whether days ahead are darker or brighter, but we remain in this seemingly endless gray muddle. As foretold in the queue at the Albert V. Bryan United States Courthouse on November 19, “everything evaporated.” Yet the clouds did not part; it grew no warmer, and the sun still did not show.
I looked forward to seeing Mr. Comey tried, the government’s witnesses sputtering, Ms. Halligan’s expression when her prosecution failed, and Mr. Comey’s when he walked out vindicated—the moments when justice’s face is uncovered. I planned to go to The Westin Alexandria Old Town bar next to the courthouse and note what disgraced prosecutors drink.
Mr. Comey is the former director of the FBI, an acclaimed crime novelist, and an attorney. He has the best lawyers to protect him. Letitia James, John Bolton, and Senator Adam “Schwifty” Schiff also have the power, connections, and abilities to secure their exonerations. (Though I have heard the case against Mr. Bolton may be more legitimate.) Mr. Comey is lucky he ran afoul of a president who leads a gang more inept, bumbling, and bungling than the Beagle Boys. Good for him.
For the rest of America, this is not a victory—this was the best-case scenario for which the Trump-Vance regime could have hoped. This case ought to have been judicially rebuked as a malicious prosecution to set a standard, since President Donald Trump intends more revenge trials. Dismissal over grand jury improprieties was my second-favorite option. Dissolving on the grounds of illegitimacy allows our Mandarin Mussolini to feign the charges had merit, say, “And we would’ve gotten away with it, too, but for those meddling judges!”
Lawfare’s Ben Wittes said: “To put it bluntly, the government and Halligan here got off on a technicality.” I hate that. It does not encourage a better world, nor does it deter any bad behavior. It only gives legal analysts like Glenn Kirschner another steady week of NBC appearances. (No shade on Mr. Kirschner! Justice matters!) Mr. Wittes complained that while the defense for Mr. Comey was now moot, it should not be “mooted out in terms of accountability for the government actors who made these travesties happen” since the “garbage investigations” into the president’s political foes are continuing absent a reason for them to halt, and that “it cannot be that if you set out maliciously and illegally and on the president’s behalf to rid him of meddlesome priests”—turbulent! Turbulent!—“the worst that happens is that you fail and the priests walk free.”
While Mr. Wittes compares the Trump goons to Henry II and his knights, I think of them more like comic-book villains. White House and DOJ spokespeople swore they’ll be back, they’ll get that James Comey if it’s the last thing they do, and we haven’t heard the last of them! Meanwhile, they could not successfully prosecute the man for whom the would-be headsmen ground their axes for eight years. As always, their evil and stupidity exist in balance and opposition, competition, and complementation.
If they were wise, the Trump administration would see this as an opportunity to save face, accept defeat, “take the L,” and use government resources for something other than the president’s vendettas. Ms. Halligan should return to Florida and rubber-stamping insurance settlements. She is not competent, charismatic, or charming, so what value does she bring the Commonwealth of Virginia, except screwing up more paperwork? She will eventually have a life after Trump, and she may wish for a good reputation and career then. Maybe she imagines herself haunting the Fox News or Newsmax green rooms, but she is as minimally-talented on television as she is at prosecuting. Even if her reward is a fellowship at Heritage or some other conservative no-show job, on her current course, her prospects are dim. She will not be cherished in the annals of the far right for accomplishing nothing.
Ms. Halligan only had two qualifications. (1) This role was bestowed on her so she could execute tasks the president needed done that no career prosecutor would do. She could not. (2) The Dunning-Kruger effect blinds Ms. Halligan from realizing her maladroit fuckuppery makes her a scapegoat. It seems doubtful that she has any value to Mr. Trump except to be used, so she will be discarded once she is useless. Ms. Halligan earned miserable failure, not glorious defeat. She did not “go down swinging”—her name became synonymous with the ability she demonstrated.
There is a rumor that Mr. Trump’s legal hitmen, “Eagle Ed” Martin and Bill Pulte (the weird dude who creeps through mortgage paperwork), are “in the barrel,” and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is investigating their work on the mortgage fraud case against Mr. Schiff. Mr. Martin and his allies claimed on Twitter that this inquiry is intended to make that prosecution more solid, a real “bomb,” but this administration seems more likely to self-cannibalize.
Mr. Blanche is likely making plans for a future Department of Justice where he is the “top cop,” and the notoriously corrupt Attorney General Pam Bondi, Ms. Halligan, Messrs. Martin, Pulte, and the rest of their goons are kicked to the curb.
I speculated before that the regime’s incompetence may give us hope. If their strategy was not to bring weak cases to inconvenience the targets of their rage, then these fools believed their cases were strong. We have all seen C-students who, from the back of the class, pass in incomplete work. This administration might like us to believe that they are unfairly graded, but I think they are less like a struggling teenager and instead more closely resemble a teenager railing cocaine off their Social Studies book and going on a clown show of a “bender” while nobody can convince them they are fucking up. If these Republicans do not think that they need to save face, they will faceplant repeatedly.
This is contrary to the popular sentiment of dread that goes, “the good guys won today, but the bad guys learned what they must improve. They will become better at fascism, improve their abilities. Next time, they will cross their T’s and dot their I’s.” MAGA could grow more competent, more effective, but I tend to think that could make them less dangerous.
The dirtier, rainier, more confused reality might be that this is the best they can do, but what if they keep on like this? The more effective evil administration would be a mercy because, to maintain its credibility, it does not take up these nonsensical cases. Does this seem like a government capable of such a thing? Can we survive the murky, lightless days?
On that “forking path” between choosing slapdash vengeance or acting normal, the president has chosen mean, venal stupidity over America’s interests. After six Democratic lawmakers released a Facebook video reminding U.S. military personnel that the Uniform Code of Military Justice allows refusal of unlawful orders, Mr. Trump cried like a bitch that it was “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH,” “treason,” and spent a sleepless night spamming calls for them to be “hanged.” Stephen Miller, his hyperventilating evil vizier, breathlessly ranted the PSA as evidence of a Democratic “insurrection.” Senator Elissa Slotkin was informed by the Senate’s Sergeant at Arms that the FBI’s counterterrorism division opened an investigation into her. Meanwhile, Secretary of Defense, ex-Fox News host, and DUI hire Pete Hegseth (recently reported as screaming “kill them all” while ordering a missile strike on either a Venezuelan drug boat or a fishing vessel) directed the military to open an investigation into Senator Mark Kelly and contemplated whether he ought to recall him to active service so that he may be court-martialed. However petty or pathetic any particular political prosecution or weaponizing of justice may be—however laughable—these villains have worse fantasies.
FBI Director Kash Patel, or as I call him, “Kush Patel,” because that fool has GOT to be smoking something, is under scrutiny for having an “elite” FBI SWAT team, who might typically respond to mass shootings or terror attacks, serve as a personal protective detail for his long-distance girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins. Mr. Patel must know, in his heart, that if she prefers he waste tens or hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars per booty call instead of moving to DC and “playing house,” Ms. Wilkins does not intend to marry him. The expense adds up, but I suppose Mr. Patel is happy to charge it to the American people. Meanwhile, this taxpayer wonders if those Bureau employees could have spent their time investigating something federal.
On the cold Wednesday before Thanksgiving, November 26, 2025, two National Guardsmen were shot near the Farragut West Metro station in downtown DC. The shooter was Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan who previously worked with CIA-backed Afghan paramilitary units. Twenty-year-old Specialist Sarah Beckstrom died from her wounds; 24-year-old Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe was grievously injured. Video here via XCancel.
This White House’s response was elated—finally, something to change the subject from the president’s swollen feet and mental decline, the Epstein files, the “economic cock and ball torture” of his tariffs, rising grocery prices, and the failure of these prosecutions. Mr. Miller had not seemed so gleeful since the assassination of Turning Points USA podcaster Charlie Kirk. Finally, a narrative they know: racism and authoritarian overreach. Five hundred more National Guardsmen will be deployed to D.C. To do what? Loiter at the Farragut stations, protect ATM lobbies, happy hour bars, shoe and luggage stores? The soldiers already stationed in our city are so bored with the occupation that they mostly do groundskeeping.
This was terrorism. Mr. Lakanwal drove from Bellingham, Washington, to the District of Columbia to kill brave men and women in uniform. Could that have been prevented had the FBI not been busy helping coddle Mr. Patel’s girlfriend? Had the Department of Justice not spent months prosecuting Mr. Trump’s personal and political enemies? Had counterterrorism resources been used for something real, instead of trying to execute Senate and Congressional Democrats? What else did they miss? Mr. Trump wants a police state. They should be policing and not whatever the fuck they are doing. The murder of those Guardsmen is a consequence of this administration’s improper focus—the president’s hands are stained with the blood of soldiers killed under his watch.
I will continue to mock the revenge tour since it is objectively ridiculous, but we should be under no illusion that it is harmless. Beyond chilling discourse—I built an additional review step into my revision process to check for “things assholes might twist out of context”—wasting government resources flailing and failing to crucify the president’s antagonists costs society in dull nickels and dimes as well as tragedy. For example, this Thanksgiving weekend, I had to take time to clean, organize, and detail the Hexmobile. Five hundred National Guardsmen need something to do, and checkpoints are the kind of busywork that makes authoritarians feel powerful. My car was a mess of strewn papers, drafts of my forthcoming essays, “Who the Hell Was Charlie Kirk Anyway?”, “Throat Goat Donald Owes America the Epstein Files,” “No Kings 2: Rise of the Trump Kingdom,” as well as my report on Crooked Con, the Pod Save America convention, and ibuprofen bottles (because this administration can be a real pain in the neck!). I prefer to be secure from people sorting through my papers or possessions—one of the pocket Constitutions in my floorboard promised me that. I lost this time to protect myself. How many other so-called “enemies of the people” had to do the same?
If I fall on the president’s hit list because my takes are too spicy, or perhaps I uncover a truth that the regime dares not allow to see the light of day, I will not be represented by superstar attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, nor will I be supported by half the country’s white-shoe lawyers and media. Will Mr. Comey stand for me? Will Mr. Comey continue standing now that he has won reprieve, or will he focus on writing his next novel?
The instinct is to end this essay on a note that projects an outcome that differs from the present. I resist that fade to black: “And so the rain will continue, the days will be gray, but the sun will emerge, burst through the clouds, and bring warmth to the land.” Or: “We won today, but it is winter. December nears. The days grow colder and darker. Where shall we be in four months?” Change is not inevitable. A gloomy status quo can persist for some time, and its collapse may not be the one most foreshadowed. If this regime claims they need to learn nothing, they did nothing wrong, the fascism they have now is adequate, why improve?
In Part I, I asked how many more such gray days we need to suffer. I am left with the answer I already knew: as many as it takes, as we can survive. The price of Mr. Trump’s incompetence is blood, time, and freedom. Mr. Comey paid with months of legal fees and stress; Ms. Beckstrom paid with her life. However much more this costs, we must keep the ledger. I should not need to care for Mr. Comey, but if I let his fate go, neglect to witness what happens to him, what else will I forget? This administration tried to forge its grand jury indictment just to make it look more impressive. If nobody is making notes, unrecorded truths will be lost and forgotten in the miasma.