Not only is it immoral and evil for the government to bring a false criminal case against someone,

but to do it against people for the simple act of criticizing the president.

That goes to the very heart of our most basic liberties.

Welcome to the Mona Charan show. Delighted you could join us. I'm happy to be joined today by

Benjamin Wittes, who's a founder of Lawfare and fellow at the Brookings Institution, because it's been

an extraordinary week in law. Now, of course, the most important pushback that we have seen

against the depredations of the Trump administration have come from voters. But in addition, we have seen this parade of judges who have

been slapping down what can only be called slap dash and unbelievably clumsy and amateurish

acts by the Justice Department in going after seeking to punish

Trump's critics.

And so there were developments in one case in particular that Ben knows intimately.

And so we should say up front, Ben, first of all,

thank you for being here. Always a pleasure. And we should explain up front that we're going to

talk about the Comey case and you have a personal relationship to this case. So why don't you

explain what that is? Yeah. So Jim Comey and I have been

friends for 20 years and I have a peripheral involvement in not in the specific events that are

alleged in the indictment, but in a broader set of ancillary activities.

And so my name shows up in some of the documents.

And there are, you know, this is both Jim and the principal other person involved in the events of at issue in this litigation,

Dan Richmond, who's a professor at Columbia, are friends and lawfare contributors occasionally.

And so I don't pretend to be, you know, I try to keep my legal

analysis of things independent of my personal views, but I don't pretend to have no personal

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