Judge calls third Comey prosecution a possible exercise in futility; prosecutors suggest a fourth charge anyway.

…(cont) That same Monday, a federal judge ruled the Justice Department had illegally fired Comey's daughter, Maurene Comey, from her own job as a federal prosecutor. She'd held that job for a decade, the judge found, with consistently strong reviews, right up until her firing in July 2025. I don't have a question about that part. I have the date, and the date is Monday, same as the other one.

Friday is what kept me up a second night. Comey's lawyers were back in court, and according to The Hill, their argument was that the Justice Department had simply waited too long to bring these charges. CBS reported that prosecutors and the defense faced off over that same motion. ABC reported the judge had not yet ruled on whether to throw the case out.

Here's where I went out to the car. I keep a folder in the glovebox — registration, insurance card, the receipt from the one time the fan belt went — and Friday night I sat out there with the dome light on, laying the court reporting next to itself the way I lay those receipts side by side when a bill doesn't match what I was quoted. According to the Washington Examiner, Judge Trevor McFadden pressed Comey's attorneys on whether dismissing this case could turn into what he called a great exercise in futility, if a grand jury later comes back with an indictment over more recent conduct. That's on the record, from the bench, Friday afternoon.

And at that same hearing — this is the part I kept rereading — The New York Times reported that prosecutors suggested they may seek additional charges against Comey. I asked the man at the corner store this morning if he could explain why a department would float a fourth charge the same day a judge wonders aloud whether killing the third one would accomplish anything. He sells lottery tickets and cigarettes for a living. He didn't have an answer. Neither do I.

Oh — one more thing, before I let you go. Two investigations into this leak closed without charges. The third is being argued over right now, this week, on the grounds that it came too long after the fact. The New York Times didn't say what a fourth charge would even cover. Does anything in the record say what it's supposed to be about?

My wife's probably still right. I should have left it alone.