Tyler Lemons Narcs out Pam Bondi: She Couldn’t Have Ratified Lindsey Halligan’s Actions
Now that Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick has ordered that prosecutors provide Jim Comey with the grand jury transcripts along with all the evidence they used in their latest filing (which they had not provided to Comey beforehand), let’s return to the saga of the missing grand jury transcripts, shall we? Because they get closer to implicating Pam Bondi in misleading the court.
As I laid out here, on October 28, Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ordered prosecutors to give her all the transcripts of Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer’s actions in the grand jury. On October 31, DOJ delivered a package to her. Yesterday, Judge Currie ordered prosecutors to deliver what she had actually asked for: “remarks made by the indictment signer both before and after the testimony of the sole witness” during the presentment of the indictment the jury accepted, as well as “transcripts regarding the presentation of the three-count indictment” that the grand jury no-billed.
“Upon receiving this order” (which would have been yesterday, November 4), according to a new filing from Tyler Lemons, “the government immediately contacted the transcription service and requested the complete recording.” And then “the government requested that the transcription service transcribe the entire recording, which had not been done previously.” It provided those materials, for the first time recording the things Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer had done in the grand jury — both during the presentment where the grand jury rejected one of the counts, and before and after the presentment where they approved the indictment — today.
But that means that when Attorney General Pam Bondi ratified what Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer had done on October 31 …
In addition, based on my review of the grand jury proceedings in United States v. Corney and United States v. James, I hereby exercise the authority vested in the Attorney General by law, including 28 U.S.C. § 509, 510, and 515, to ratify Ms. Halligan’s actions before the grand jury and her signature on the indictments by the grand jury in each case.
… (using the same transcripts that were delivered to Judge Currie), those transcripts didn’t reveal what Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer had done.
At all!
This means two things:
First, that Pam Bondi in fact has not ratified anything Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer did, because she could not have reviewed any of it. DOJ did not yet have the recording, much less a transcript.
And it means that Pam Bondi ratified what Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer did, seemingly seeing precisely what Judge Currie did: the transcripts actually excluded everything Lindsey the Insurance Lawyer had done.
Update: An interesting wrinkle. Normally it’d take a long time to drag someone in the AG’s vicinity to answer for these irregularities. But not so here. Henry Charles Whitaker has filed notices of appearances in both the Comey and James cases in advance of next week’s hearing on these challenges. He’s the former FL Solicitor General, now serving as Bondi’s Counselor. That may backfire.
Update: Journalists who were in Currie’s hearing today report that DOJ still didn’t give Judge Currie the entire transcripts. There was a several minute section missing!
Sounds as if Bondi is going to need a retroactive ratification of her prior premature retroactive ratification. I hope this eventually gets repackaged as a Bondi fraud upon the court.
I have to wonder whether the judges will start tossing cases with prejudice due to prosecutorial misconduct (i.e. failure to follow a valid court order) with bar referrals to boot. I’m not referring to mere adventures in typos etc., but outright lying to three federal judges about what the grand jury saw and heard. How is it possible that DoJ could indict without the recording or the transcript, since that information would be put into the filed complaint? This also may explain IS Halligan’s fumbling at (IIRC) AG James’ arraignment regarding two indictment sheets. One of the judges already called out DoJ for indictment now, investigate later in the current wave, on top of the NJ case where Habba was roasted for the same thing about Ras Baraka when that case was dismissed. Perhaps Halligan’s failure to name her client was really a statement against interest.
All of these actions are intentional gambits to gaslight the courts and meet the deadlines demanded by Convict-1 for indictments. That makes it worth the bar’s attention especially considering it was done under color of authority.
This also makes Blanche’s invisibility very interesting, because one would have expected he’d tell Bondi there is nothing to see. Likewise Kash Patel and Dan Bongino and Dan’s minders would also have pointed out there is nothing there since FBI would be the principal investigating office (I would assume, I may be wrong here). This might come out if Comey and James get the WH communications as well.
Who are “Dan’s minders” anyway? Are their identities known? How many of them are there? The only member of the current Trump administration that actually has guard rails…
I don’t know, but given how far off the reservation Dan has strayed in the past, he certainly has them and he’s been very quiet for a while now. After all, he dared to criticize Bondi about the Epstein files release in July and that is the ultimate hot button for Convict-1. As Deputy Director of the FBI, his ambit would certainly include investigations for prosecution. However, Hegseth’s minders are at least known, thanks to SecDef himself (unintentionally).
While I believe the judges have so far allowed Hanlon’s razor to rule while Insurance Lawyer Lindsey and her lackeys burn through their cup of good will, I’d be surprised if it lasts much longer given the revealing of their own blatant abuses of the legal process, rules, and orders for their Dear Leader. Strategic stupidity may be their only protection from the consequences of their actions.
The arrogance and incompetence on display here is shocking. Are Bondi and Lemons not talking to each other?
It’s bad enough as it is — I shudder to think how much worse off we’d all be if they were truly the best people.
I certainly hope these “prosecutions” put the stake in the judicial presumption of regularity on behalf of this DOJ. Make them show all of their work, all the time, everywhere.
I wonder if Tyler Lemons has that eerie feeling of being in a Lemony Snicket novel, except it’s more like Lemons, He Sneaked It.
But at least the North Carolina Bar is spelled correctly this time.
Maybe she has an out. “Upon receiving this order … the government immediately contacted the transcription service and requested the complete recording.” That statement, to me, does not rule out the government having previously had a portion only, of the recording.
And then “the government requested that the transcription service transcribe the entire recording, which had not been done previously.” Again, to me, that statement does not rule out the government having previously obtained a portion only, of the transcript.
On the other hand, such precise muddying, in one’s writing, implies brainpower and skill. Hmm.
I would have thought they’d have wanted the complete transcription for their records.
I’m not sure how it makes sense any other way than it was intentionally suppressed. The whys and the wherefores remain to be seen, but a question for the actual attorneys here: How else can prosecutors make a case unless they, you know, actually present the questions for which the answers are given?
It appears that, as you suggest, the government had the witness testimony from the grand jury transcribed but not the entire proceedings. That makes a certain amount of sense from the government’s perspective, because in a typical case the validity of the indictment is not in question, so the only part of the grand jury proceedings with continuing relevance is the witness testimony. This doesn’t explain why the government didn’t order a complete transcript once it became clear that the indictment was in question, and certainly doesn’t explain why the government didn’t order a complete transcript once the Court ordered them to provide a complete transcript to the Court.
Pam Bondi wrote that, “based on my review of the grand jury proceedings in United States v. Corney and United States v. James, I hereby…and United States v. James, I hereby…ratify Ms. Halligan’s actions before the grand jury and her signature on the indictments returned by the grand jury in each case.” This suggests that Bondi read the grand jury transcript, but doesn’t say she did. It is not uncommon for senior people to make decisions based on summaries provided by their subordinates, so a “review” could consist of nothing more than listening to Halligan’s description of what occurred during the proceedings. Therefore, I doubt she placed herself in any legal jeopardy by retroactively ratifying the indictment. I would say she harmed her reputation as a lawyer, but I’m not sure she has any reputation left to lose.
I don’t disagree until the penultimate sentence. She’s in charge, so unless her underling is directly disobeying her orders, she’s responsible. I’m not a lawyer, so I guess I can’t really say whether that clears her of legal onus, but if it does, then it sure seems like something is horribly wrong.
Hard to see how a grand jury transcript that includes witness testimony, but not the questions that elicited it, is remotely useful, except to obscure what’s going on.
How visually would those pages look between what’s on paper and what’s missing?
That is, any punctuation in between what’s missing and what’s there?
I hope I’m clear, as mud.
This would seem to look very bad for Bondi if it comes out that Halligan did something bad/unethical/incompetent/etc in the new portion of the transcript.
Great stuff.
Possibly, however, you’re being too generous, Marcy, in saying that Bondi saw exactly what Judge Currie saw yesterday. My strong suspicion is that Bondi did not read even the partial transcript that EDVA had. In either case, a request for a sworn declaration on this point to support the Halloween letter might be in order.
Intuitively, this seems closer to the truth. Bondi realised Halligan was invalidly appointed, the case was going to get dismissed with prejudice and Bondi would get the blame from the Audience Of One. Having realised this, she though up some utter bullshit to try to avoid blame, if not to avoid the tossing of the case. Expect her to blame the “radical judge” when the case inevitably gets yeeted. As this fits Trump’s weird worldview, and because she’s the Tom Hagen for Trump’s Oval Office “business interests”, she won’t be fired.
I think your analysis is correct. Pam Bondi is fundamentally incompetent and is only in her position because of her fealty to the King, as in so many fascist regimes. This whole Halligan affair is one big CYA shitshow because a lawless dictator needs incompetent people like Bondi to make excuses for him and to cover his tracks. Lindsay Halligan is only there to carry out Trump’s lawless abuse of the justice system and use it to harass his political opponents.
I think you have hit on one of the most characteristic tells as to whether this is a full-on fascist regime or not.
It is hard to establish yourself as loyal to a paranoid schemer, so there are seldom enough accepted loyalists for all the posts. This was notable in the Hitler regime from the start. Goering was commander of the air force, police-president of Prussia, leader of the party in the Reichstag and chief forester.
Just like Trump’s call regarding Hunter Biden to Zelensky. Just say he’s under investigation and we’ll take it from there. It’s not the conviction that matters to these folks. It’s the harrasment and political talking points they want to use. Not to mention the expenses incurred by the accused.
It goes without saying that current practice of conducting investigations and trials on social media, rather than investigating and THEN saying something in public, isn’t working well for America. I wonder how long it will take us to go back?
It seems as if James Comey could confirm that we’re doing it wrong, just based on his experience making announcements about Hillary in 2016.
Going after poor immigrants without attorneys and unable to speak English and being deported to Horrible-Torture-stan has made them lazy.
I see this in my work in regulatory practice. Lazy writers not having a plan or outline, just answering each question asked one at a time, just to satisfy the asker. Never ends well.
And Whitaker is just Counselor in DOJ so he wouldn’t undergo Senate questioning. His law license is up for grabs as he isn’t Senate confirmed principal officer.
Halligan is so green, so incompetent to have handled a grand jury presentation ( as well as being terrified of any thought of not accomplishing her designated mission) that I wouldn’t be surprised she didn’t know at the time that her comments as well as instructions on the law to the grand jurors were required to be fully transcribed and preserved just as any testimony is.
Please forgive the slightly off-topic comment:
Has anyone else noted this oddity in the Comey docket (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71459120/united-states-v-comey/)?
The government is making filings that include “by James B. Comey, Jr” in the title, e.g., the two most recent additions:
NOTICE OF COMPLIANCE WITH MAGISTRATE JUDGES ORDER by James B. Comey, Jr re 161 Order,,, (Diaz, Gabriel) (Entered: 11/06/2025)
APPEAL OF MAGISTRATE JUDGE DECISION to District Court by James B. Comey, Jr re 160 Motion Hearing,, (Diaz, Gabriel) (Entered: 11/06/2025)
Gabriel Diaz, of course, represents the government.
Not a lawyer, but as a native English speaker I like to think that I have a command of that language’s prepositions, and I’m pretty sure these should say “by USA” (though perhaps also “as to James B. Comey Jr”).
Embarrassing.
Reordering the second one to ‘by Comey to District Court’ would fix that, and hanging phrases are among the most common usage errors. But that wouldn’t work for the first one.
We are in the era when ‘have went’ is standard among highly (or at least expensively) educated public figures, so maybe it’s just a marker that Mr. Garcia was graduated from an Ivy League school.
I had also wondered about this, and noticed that they fixed it sometime yesterday just as you suggested! Including the “as to …”.
To be slightly more specific – they fixed it for those two entries, but not for either of the previous ones with the same issue (I found 2 more, but there may have been others).
They are building quite the record of embarrassing slip ups in this docket. As long as the judge isn’t a stickler for the details, they should be fine …
I think Bondi has a few options here.
The first is that her idea of ratification is: I’m just propping up her signature on the charging papers. In other words, ratification doesn’t require me to read the transcripts, or listen to all the recordings. I can support Halligan at, well . . . let’s just call it a high level of generality.
That’s the option if there’s something stinky in the transcripts.
The second is for Bondi to say that Lemons was wrong, and that she had the transcripts and reviewed them. Silly Lemons – he must not have realized that main justice had copies of them (it’s no problem to throw a mere AUSA under the bus).
That’s the option if there’s nothing stinky in the transcripts.