Prosecutor Nopes Out Of The DOJ After Being Handed The James Comey ‘8647’ Case

from the running-out-of-lawyers dept

The DOJ has gone past bleeding talent. Now, it’s just bleeding whatever.

It’s one thing to do a bit of MAGA swagger before a captive audience and walk out with a criminal indictment that contains no evidence of criminal activity. It’s quite another thing to present that case to a court, where you’ll have to answer questions from judges and opposing counsel.

Matthew Petracca wasn’t really the sort of person someone would expect to be elevated to the position of Assistant US Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Sure, he had some past experience with the state’s Department of Justice, but he definitely wasn’t a seasoned prosecutor by any stretch of the imagination. He was, however, a registered Republican and that may have been the only thing that mattered.

But Donald Trump really wanted to see former FBI director James Comey punished for daring to choose loyalty to the public over loyalty to Trump during Trump’s first presidency. The first attempt to lock him up fell apart for several reasons, but most notably because another one of Trump’s handpicked prosecutors — his former insurance lawyer, Lindsey Halligan — managed to set fire to pretty much everything she touched before deciding to exit to the DOJ.

This case is even stupider than the first vindictive prosecution attempt — one that attempts to convert obviously protected speech into a true threat against the sitting president. Ellis Boyle — the US Attorney for the EDNC — definitely wants this to happen. Boyle has made it clear he doesn’t actually work for the Department of Justice. He works for the Department of Whatever The Fuck Trump Wants.

Boyle wears Trump’s hallmark red ties, mimics the double thumbs up in photos, and ends his emails with, “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” echoing the president’s social media sign-offs. He peppers press releases with the same sort of charged language, like catching “thugs” and “bad hombres,” that Trump uses on Truth Social.

Trump pushed Boyle. Boyle pushed his office. And Petracca got stuck with this case. But only temporarily. Unlike his two bosses, Petracca was expected to present this case to a court. Faced with that reality, Petracca chose to exit as gracefully as he could under the circumstances.

Friday’s court filing requests that Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Petracca, who was listed as the government’s lead lawyer on the Comey case, be removed from the docket. Federal prosecutor Timothy Severo was swapped in.

Petracca has also been taken off at least three other cases since last week, according to court filings, which do not specify why he is stepping aside. 

This doesn’t look like a move made by the DOJ to replace a prosecutor it felt couldn’t handle these cases. Instead, according to this reporting by NBC News, it looks like Petracca is leaning towards getting out of the DOJ business altogether.

Petracca had contemplated leaving the Justice Department altogether, according to two people familiar with the matter, but instead remained a DOJ employee after taking a week off. Petracca had not responded to a previous request for comment on his status at the Justice Department, and did not respond to an additional request for comment on Friday. 

Leaving would be the smart thing to do. Any junior prosecutor stuck with this loser of a case should leave as well. If Ellis Boyle wants to be Trump’s mini-me, the least he can do is show up in court and defend his office’s transparently vindictive actions in person. Anything other than dismissing the charges with prejudice is just going to further destroy the DOJ’s reputation. And it really doesn’t have any reputation to spare at this point… and Trump’s still going to be running/ruining it for another couple of years.

Petracca’s best course of action would have been to quit as soon as he was handed this case. He didn’t and now his name will forever be associated with this vindictive, unconstitutional indictment. But if he wants to salvage what’s left of his integrity, he’ll need to leave this iteration of the DOJ entirely and put as much space between him and it as possible.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, doj, donald trump, ellis boyle, free speech, james comey, matthew petracca, trump administration, vindictive prosecution