conceded that instead of presenting a new indictment to the grand jury after it declined to approve one of three counts, interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan simply brought an altered version, omitting the rejected count, to the magistrate’s courtroom for the grand jury’s foreperson to sign. Her admission sent shockwaves through the courtroom on Wednesday, where attorneys were gathered to argue a separate legal issue of whether Comey was charged only because of President Donald Trump’s animus toward him. What will happen to the criminal case was not immediately clear. Judge Michael Nachmanoff, despite appearing exasperated and taking several seconds of silence to take in what the prosecutors admitted, did not give away whether he viewed the issue as a procedural or fatal
