The “totality of events” surrounding James Comey’s indictment, including President Donald Trump’s own words, has at a minimum handed the ex-FBI director’s high-powered defense material to work with if it files a motion to dismiss the case on vindictive or selective prosecution grounds. But new reporting suggests there are even more arrows in the defense’s quiver if it argues, as expected, that the indictment was the punishment.

ABC News reported Monday that the examination of a potential criminal case against Comey is far from new — and that, in fact, three prosecutors’ offices concluded that there wasn’t probable cause to bring false statement or obstruction charges related to Comey’s 2020 testimony about media leaks before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Those offices reportedly included the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, that of Russiagate origins special counsel John Durham, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA), the very jurisdiction where Comey faces charges.

Recall that Comey was indicted in late September, just days before the statute of limitations was set to expire, after Trump installed his former Mar-a-Lago case lawyer Lindsey Halligan, who had never previously prosecuted a case, to head the EDVA USAO in place of Erik Siebert, who reportedly had reservations about pursuing a mortgage fraud case against Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James.

According to the indictment Halligan secured on her own and reportedly without full-throated support from the uppermost echelons of the DOJ, Comey denied, under questioning by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that he had “‘authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports’ regarding an FBI investigation concerning Person 1” — person 1 reportedly being none other than Hillary Clinton.

The apparent rush to prosecute, on the heels of the president’s public missive to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, in which he stated “[w]e can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility” and “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”, ran in stark contrast to the reported years of unsuccessful attempts by prosecutors to build a solid Comey case.

According to ABC News, the USAO in D.C. investigated Comey and “call[ed] him to testify before a grand jury in 2021,” but that went nowhere. And Durham, whose million-dollar special counsel probe memorably secured a lone guilty plea and suffered two acquittals at trial, reportedly discussed with EDVA prosecutors his reasoning for never bringing a Comey case.

Halligan, reportedly aware the EDVA USAO had produced a memo citing Durham’s and the D.C. USAO’s reasoning to recommend against charging Comey, pushed ahead anyway.

All of this raises questions — including as to why a Trump loyalist was the one to finally bring the case, why previous memoranda rejecting criminal prosecution appear to have been ignored, and the timing of the case itself — which Comey’s longtime friend and current defense lawyer Patrick Fitzgerald might also raise to blow up the whole case.