WASHINGTON (AP) — A US federal judge on Monday dismissed the criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, concluding that the prosecutor who brought the charges at US President Donald Trump’s urging was illegally appointed by the US Justice Department.
The rulings from US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie halt at least for now a pair of prosecutions that had targeted two of the president’s most high-profile political opponents and amount to a sharp rebuke of the Trump administration’s legal maneuvering to install an inexperienced and loyalist prosecutor willing to file the cases.
The orders do not concern the substance of the allegations against Comey or James but instead deal with the unconventional manner in which the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was named to her position as interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Defense lawyers said the Trump administration had no legal authority to make the appointment.
In a pair of similar rulings, Currie agreed and said the invalid appointment required the dismissal of the cases.
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“All actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment,” including securing and signing the indictments, “were unlawful exercises of executive power and are hereby set aside,” she wrote.
Lindsey Halligan, whose appointment as US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia has been ruled ‘defective’ by the court, speaks with a reporter outside of the White House in Washington, August 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
A White House spokeswoman said the rulings will “not be the final word on the matter,” and US Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed at an unrelated news conference that the Justice Department would pursue an “immediate appeal.”
Prosecutors may also try to refile the changes, a possibility left open by the judge’s orders.
Indictments had been subject to multiple challenges
The challenges to Halligan’s appointment are just one facet of a multiprong assault on the indictments by Comey and James, whose multiple other efforts to dismiss the cases remain unresolved.
Both have separately asserted that the prosecutions were vindictive and emblematic of a weaponized US Justice Department. Comey’s lawyers last week seized on a judge’s findings of a constellation of grand jury irregularities and missteps by Halligan and James likewise has cited “outrageous government conduct” preceding her indictment.
“I am grateful that the court ended the case against me, which was a prosecution based on malevolence and incompetence and a reflection of what the Justice Department has become under Donald Trump, which is heartbreaking,” Comey, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of making a false statement and obstructing Congress, said in a video statement.
In this file photo from January 22, 2017, US President Donald Trump shakes hands with then-FBI director James Comey during a reception at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
In a separate statement, James, a Democrat who has pleaded not guilty to mortgage fraud allegations, said, “I am heartened by today’s victory and grateful for the prayers and support I have received from around the country.” She said she remained “fearless in the face of these baseless charges as I continue fighting for New Yorkers every single day.”
Halligan’s appointment
At issue in Currie’s rulings is the mechanism the Trump administration employed to appoint Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience, to lead one of the Justice Department’s most elite and important offices.
Halligan was named as a replacement for Erik Siebert, a veteran prosecutor in the office and interim US attorney who resigned in September amid Trump administration pressure to file charges against both Comey and James. He stepped aside after Trump told reporters he wanted Siebert “out.”
The following night, Trump said he would be nominating Halligan to the role of interim US attorney and publicly implored Bondi to take action against his political opponents, saying in a Truth Social post that, “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility” and “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
US President Donald Trump arrives at the White House in Washington, November 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Comey was indicted three days after Halligan was sworn in by Bondi, and James was charged two weeks after that.
Attorneys general do have the authority to name an interim US attorney who can serve for 120 days. But lawyers for Comey and James argued that once that period expires, as it did in Siebert’s case, the law gives federal judges in the district the exclusive authority to appoint a prosecutor to serve until the vacancy is filled. By making successive interim US appointments on its own, defense lawyers said, the Justice Department did an end-run around well-established law.
Erik Siebert, interim US Attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, speaks as Attorney General Pam Bondi, right, and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, left, listen during a news conference at the Manassas FBI Field Office, March 27, 2025, in Manassas, Virginia (AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr., File)
“The 120-day clock began running with Mr. Siebert’s appointment on January 21, 2025. When that clock expired on May 21, 2025, so too did the Attorney General’s appointment authority,” Currie wrote. “Consequently, I conclude that the Attorney General’s attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid and that Ms. Halligan has been unlawfully serving in that role since September 22, 2025.”
The Justice Department had defended Halligan’s appointment but revealed last month that it also given Halligan a separate position of “Special Attorney,” presumably as a way to protect the indictments from the possibility of collapse. But Currie said such a retroactive designation could not save the cases.
“The implications of a contrary conclusion are extraordinary,” the judge wrote. “It would mean the Government could send any private citizen off the street — attorney or not — into the grand jury room to secure an indictment so long as the Attorney General gives her approval after the fact. That cannot be the law.”
US Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks with reporters during a news conference at the US Department of Justice in Washington, November 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Though the defendants had asked for the cases to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning the Justice Department would be barred from bringing them again, Currie instead dismissed them without prejudice — leaving open the possibility that prosecutors could try to file the charges again.
Comey was indicted just days before the five-year statute of limitations in his case expired, which could complicate any effort to refile the case. One of his lawyers, Patrick Fitzgerald, said in a statement that Currie’s decision “further indicates that because the indictment is void, the statute of limitations has run and there can be no further indictment.”
Judges have separately held that several other interim US attorneys — in New Jersey, Los Angeles and Nevada — have served in their positions unlawfully but have also permitted cases brought by their offices to proceed. Lawyers for Comey and James had argued that Currie’s rulings needed to go even further because Halligan was apparently the only prosecutor who presented evidence to the grand juries.
Longtime foes of the president
Comey has for years been one of Trump’s chief antagonists. Appointed FBI director in 2013 by then-US President Barack Obama, Comey at the time of Trump’s 2016 election was overseeing an investigation into whether the Republican’s presidential campaign had conspired with Russia to sway the outcome of the race. Furious over that investigation, Trump fired Comey in May 2017.
James has also been a frequent target of Trump’s ire, especially since winning a staggering judgment against him and the Trump Organization in a lawsuit alleging he defrauded banks by overstating the value of his real estate holdings on financial statements. An appeals court overturned the fine, which had ballooned to more than $500 million with interest, but upheld a lower court’s finding that Trump had committed fraud.
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