A little more than a year ago, President Donald Trump publicly demanded that Pam Bondi, then the attorney general, find a crime to pin on former FBI Director James Comey. Trump's underlings have repeatedly tried to do that, first charging Comey with lying to Congress and then accusing him of threatening to assassinate the president. But the first indictment was dismissed because Trump had illegally appointed the prosecutor who obtained it, and the second was doomed right out of the gate because it aimed to punish constitutionally protected political speech.

The Justice Department's latest attempt to follow Trump's marching orders was revealed on Monday, when U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden unsealed a "criminal information" that claims Comey illegally shared classified information with The New York Times on October 5, 2016. In an attempt to meet the statutory deadline for that charge, prosecutors filed it exactly 10 years after the alleged disclosure. But Comey's lawyers argue that federal law required the government to obtain a grand jury indictment within 10 years of the alleged offense, which it failed to do.

Whatever you make of that dispute, the president has made it clear that he wants to imprison Comey, a longtime nemesis because of his role in the "Russiagate hoax" during Trump's first term, and does not much care about exactly how that happens. Justice Department officials, meanwhile, are keen to pursue Trump's personal vendetta by using their prosecutorial powers as an instrument of his revenge.

The new case "would almost be funny if it weren't such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice," Comey said in an online video on Monday. "I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid of these people, and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary."

In the New York Times story at the center of the case, Charlie Savage and Nicole Perloth reported that Yahoo had adapted "a system intended to scan emails for child pornography" to comply with a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order seeking "messages containing a computer 'signature' tied to the communications of a state-sponsored terrorist organization." Savage and Perloth cited "two government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity."

Dustin Farahnak, a special U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, says that story included "first-time disclosures of classified information not intended for the public domain." According to Farahnak, the government has evidence that Comey "directed staff" to discuss "specific accuracy concerns" about a prior Reuters report on the same subject with Savage. In the process of doing that, Farahnak says, those FBI officials "illegally transferred classified information."

Comey's attempt to set the record straight, according to Trump's henchmen, was a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison under 18 USC 793(d), an Espionage Act provision that applies to an official who "willfully" shares "information relating to the national defense" with an unauthorized recipient when he "has reason to believe" it "could be used to the injury of the United States." Comey also faces a charge of conspiring to violate Section 793, which likewise carries a maximum 10-year sentence.

If Comey's alleged disclosure was such a grave crime, you might wonder, why did it take a decade to charge him? Because two prior investigations of the same incident concluded that criminal charges were not warranted.

Beginning in March 2017, John Durham, the U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut, looked into the genesis of the Times article. The investigation found that James Baker, then the FBI's general counsel, was one of the anonymous sources. Baker said he had acted under instructions from FBI Chief of Staff James Rybacki, whom he understood to be conveying Comey's wishes. Durham's investigation included interviews, emails, phone records, and consideration of the relevant statutes. In December 2018, Comey's lawyers note, Durham "wrote a classified memorandum outlining the investigation and recommending 'NO prosecution for Baker or anyone else.'"

The following month, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia "opened an investigation into the same subject matter," Comey's lawyers say. That investigation "was closed without any charges in February 2020" after the office "declined to prosecute."

Given the outcomes of those two investigations, the decision to charge Comey now stinks of desperation to slake Trump's thirst for revenge. According to Comey's lawyers, the tardiness of the charges also fatally undermines the case.

Federal law generally requires that prosecutors file charges within five years of the alleged crime. But the Internal Security Act of 1950 made an exception for Section 793, saying "an indictment for any violation" of that provision "may be found at any time within ten years next after such violation shall have been committed."

The charges against Comey "should be dismissed as time barred," his lawyers argue: "Section 19 of the Internal Security Act gives the government an extended ten-year limitations period in which to charge Section 793 offenses. But as Section 19 unambiguously states, the government may invoke that extended period only by obtaining a grand jury indictment. A criminal information—which the government can issue unilaterally without grand jury involvement—does not suffice. Because the default five-year statute of limitations for federal felonies has long since elapsed on the alleged offenses, and the government's information does not meet the express statutory requirement for an extended ten-year limitations period, the information is untimely and must be dismissed."

Whichever side prevails on that issue, no one should have any illusions that the Justice Department is pursuing the mission suggested by its name. "It remains unclear what [McFadden] will do with the matter and whether DOJ will even be able to secure an indictment—as required by the Constitution," Cato Institute legal fellow Mike Fox says in an emailed press release. "Should the matter proceed, it is unequivocally clear that this case is a vindictive prosecution—a classic case of lawfare by a weaponized Justice Department."

The post The Justice Department's 3rd Attempt To Imprison James Comey Stinks of Trump's Desperation for Revenge appeared first on Reason Magazine.

This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Michael Boyle, the 55-year-old managing director of HP Greater Asia, based in Singapore. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I've been at HP for more than a decade, but I'm a musician first.

I've been in rock bands for most of my life in every country I've moved to, and formed bands across different HP offices. I've moved across Singapore, Barcelona, and Sydney for different roles in the company. I'm now the managing director for Greater Asia.

I joke that I wanted to be an international rock star, which didn't quite happen, but I got to play music internationally, which is still fun.

My days are long, starting early at 6 a.m., and often ending as late as 11 p.m. Music, workouts, and curbs on phone time get me through busy days.

I'm generally an early riser, getting up at around 6 a.m.

I'm Australian, so coffee — a flat white specifically — is a very important morning ritual for me.

Typically, I'll get in a workout after that. It'll either be running, which I find the fastest and easiest, or a swim.

The first thing I don't do when I wake up is look at my phone; I avoid it for the first 10 minutes of the day to help me wake up naturally and practice gratitude.

In terms of general phone use throughout the workday, I try to use it in 10-minute bursts to get through news and that sort of thing. I'm not someone who will spend hours flicking around on the phone. I see it as a tool to get work done, jot things down, and as another interface for AI.

I do a burst of work for an hour at home

I like to get a sense of what's ahead in the day before I head into the office. I do this so I can free up my time for when I'm in the office, because I want to be fully present and part of the team.

I head to the office around 8 a.m.

Around 8 a.m., I head into the office. If I'm feeling it, I run to work. I convert documents into podcasts and listen to them while running.

As a busy executive, I often have days when I'm not at my desk, so I use AI to summarize documents, stay ahead on my emails, and manage my daily agenda. AI is helping me remove clutter, so I have time to think.

Recently, I was working on an initiative in the company, for which I needed to give a pitch. I narrated my presentation and pitch to ChatGPT first, and it gave me feedback on where I was going off track, where I was staying on track, what the key punchline was, and suggestions for keeping the group engaged.

It trained me and gave me real-time feedback. Whereas in the past, I would've done that in a vacuum. I'd be in a hotel room, talking to a wall and thinking, "I hope this goes OK."

There are so many ways this tool can help us become better leaders, make time to think, and, hopefully, be more effective.

I leave the office at 6 p.m.

Daily exercise is non-negotiable for me; I find it's the best way to stay fresh and happy. I'm a 10,000-step person, often running back home from the office to get my steps in.

When I get home from the office, I don't look at my phone or anything for a while. That's blocked out for family.

As a family, we're very big on no device use at the dinner table. I'm happy to say that my twin daughters can go out to dinner and leave their phones at home, which is pretty rare for 21-year-olds. We've taught them a few good things.

At about 9 p.m. I have to fire up again for late meetings

The company is based in the US, so I often have meetings late into the night because of the time difference.

If I need to stay up late at night for international meetings, the best way is to pick up the guitar — it wakes me up again. It's my hack for when I don't want to drink coffee.

I just have to make sure I don't keep playing during my meetings.

At around 11 p.m., my batteries run out

I'm not very productive after that, so that's the end of my day.

At home, I'll play guitar and drums for at least an hour or two every weekend. That's when I allow myself to unplug and put my brain into neutral.