Inside the seven tumultuous days that led to the James Comey indictment

(CNN) — President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan had been on the job for just four days as US attorney when she stood before a grand jury seeking an extraordinary and unprecedented indictment of former FBI Director James Comey .

There was, of course, the grave political implications of an indictment brought forward after a president demanded retribution against his political enemies, with Comey at the top of the list.

But there also was the fact it was the political appointee Halligan alone, with no prior prosecutorial experience, asking the grand jury to hand up an indictment on two counts of lying under oath and one of obstruction of justice – a not-so-subtle sign of protest from the Eastern District of Virginia prosecutors over the strength of the case.

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