Catherine Herridge discusses the alleged lie behind James Comey’s indictment.
Essentially, it involves lying to Congress, which can trigger two different statutes—a single act can constitute two crimes simultaneously, and that is what is alleged here. It is not technically perjury, although the difference between perjury and just lying to Congress is very slight—it is whether or not Comey was sworn in or not. Still, the most critical allegation surrounds what he lied about, specifically, claiming that he committed the crime of lying to Congress…
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Now, a sharp-eyed reader who read this author’s prior poston the possibility of charges against Comey might object and say something like, ‘Isn't the statute of limitations five years? So whatever Comey said in 2017 is outside that period, right?’ And the answer is yes. The statute of limitations has run for his 2017 testimony, but Herridge explains how Senator Ted Cruz forced Comey to repeat his statement on September 30, 2020:
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There are a few key points to note here. First, Herridge clearly identifies Person 1 as President Trump and Person 3 as Andrew McCabe, and if she accurately quotes that congressional testimony, we would say she is almost certainly correct. Second, we think Cruz was very deliberately setting a trap for Comey. Imagine hypothetically that Comey lied in that 2017 testimony. Obviously, we are usually supposed to give a person a presumption of innocence, but to illustrate how this trap would work, let's assume Comey was lying in that 2017 testimony. Then Comey would be in a true dilemma when Senator Cruz asked him those questions. If he continued his lie, then he would basically be resetting the clock on prosecution for lying to Congress all the way to the end of September of 2025. He might have felt good that Biden was about to win the 2020 election, but there was no way to know who might be president in 2025. However, if he admitted to lying in 2017, he could face prosecution for that prior testimony, as the five-year statute of limitations had not yet passed in 2020, and Trump was still president on that day. And since Senator Cruz has also worked as a lawyer, we tend to assume that he did that intentionally. We aren’t complaining, mind you, but we think he was very deliberately forcing Comey into exactly that dilemma because Cruz probably believed Comey was lying.
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The indictment doesn’t say it is based solely on McCabe's word. It doesn't tell us what their evidence is at all. Ted Cruz only had McCabe's word in 2020, but it doesn't follow that the indictment is solely based on that evidence. Still, in any trial, a jury is unlikely to convict unless McCabe can be supported by evidence. Otherwise, it is just ‘he said, he said’ and the jury is not likely to believe that is enough for proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But in this age of emails, text messages, and the like, a guilty person is more likely than ever to leave a digital ‘paper trail.’ Even a contemporary memo written by McCabe to himself might bolster any testimony and be sufficient to constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
