Accusations against James Comey and Letitia James are dismissed after multiple scandals

Lindsey Halligan, the Donald Trump-affiliated insurance lawyer who the Justice Department hand-picked to pursue some of the president’s long-standing political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, was not legally appointed and the charges against them are therefore dismissed.

After reviewing grand jury materials related to the Comey case, U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, explained the decision: It came down to a 120-day deadline for acting attorneys.

As News themezone reported in April, the Trump administration has been exploiting loopholes in the rules for appointing acting or temporary US attorneys to install Trump loyalists. By law, when a U.S. attorney resigns for any reason, his or her acting replacement can only remain in office for 120 days, or until a judge in the appropriate district decides that the acting attorney should be appointed or until the court makes its own appointment.

“Ms. Halligan was not appointed in a manner consistent with this framework,” Currie wrote.

Therefore, the judge continued, “all actions arising from Ms. Halligan’s flawed appointment” are deemed “unlawful exercises of executive power and are hereby vacated.”

Comey’s team had alleged that Halligan was unqualified to serve in her role as federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia because of the way she was appointed. (In a separate argument, Comey’s lawyers argued that the administration’s prosecution of the former FBI director is vindictive and selective and should be dismissed on these grounds as well.)

Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed Halligan to the role of acting U.S. attorney on Sept. 22 after incumbent U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert, a Trump appointee, resigned.

Siebert had resigned rather than submit to an alleged pressure campaign to prosecute both Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. He had failed to find enough evidence to support allegations that Comey had lied to Congress or that James had committed mortgage fraud, allegations that Trump has pressured the Justice Department to investigate.

Just a day after Siebert resigned, Trump publicly called on Bondi to speed up prosecutions against his enemies, and within 24 hours, Halligan, who has no prosecutorial experience, was sworn in as acting prosecutor for one of the nation’s most prestigious and busiest judicial districts. (The Eastern District of Virginia is known as the “rocket docket.”) James has also moved to challenge Halligan’s appointment.

“The 120-day clock began ticking with Mr. Siebert’s appointment on January 21, 2025. When that clock expired on May 21, 2025, the Attorney General’s appointment authority also expired. Accordingly, I conclude that the Attorney General’s attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid and that Ms. Halligan has been unlawfully serving in that position since September 22, 2025,” Currie wrote.

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

The judge dismissed Comey’s case without prejudice. Typically, this means prosecutors can refile charges later. Since Comey’s case was time-barred, it’s less clear how the Justice Department could try to pursue him again. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Less than a week after being appointed, and just days before the five-year statute of limitations for bringing charges expired, Halligan rushed to get a grand jury to indict Comey. His indictment alleged that Comey had lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee about whether he had authorized someone from the FBI to be an anonymous source on news reports, and that he had lied during that same meeting when he said he was unaware of any plan by Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton to accuse Trump of having ties to Russia to distract from the controversy over the use of his private email server.

The grand jury initially declined to indict Comey, an extremely rare occurrence because juries only have to find probable cause to charge someone with a crime, a very low bar.

But after Halligan forced grand jurors to stay beyond normal court hours, they agreed to indict Comey on two counts, not the three Halligan had originally requested.

Only Halligan signed the indictment. This was very unusual for a criminal trial, as there are usually other lawyers who have worked on the case or an underlying investigation that they approve.

To add to the strangeness, when a judge reviewed the indictment, he noted that there were two versions published in the court record: one in which the third charge against Comey had been dropped, and another in which the withdrawn count was not shown at all.

Seeing two sides of an indictment was something that had “never happened before,” federal Judge Lindsey Vaala told Halligan.

“I’m a little confused as to why I was given two things with the same case number that are inconsistent,” Vaala said from court in September.

Halligan told the judge that while he had prepared a three-count indictment against Comey, he had only signed the two-count indictment.

But both accusations had Halligan’s signature.

When Vaala pointed this out, all Halligan could muster in response was “Okay, well,” according to court transcripts.

Then last week, during a rare motion hearing, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Halligan never reviewed the final indictment against Comey. After failing to get the grand jury to approve all charges against the former FBI director, Halligan showed grand juries an altered version of the indictment instead of a new one as needed.

Meanwhile, in a statement following the dismissal, Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Letitia James, said the judge’s order recognized what has been clear since the beginning of the prosecutions.

“The President took extreme steps to replace one of his allies to bring these baseless charges after career prosecutors refused. This case was not about justice or the law; it was about attacking Attorney General James for what she stood for and who she challenged. We will continue to challenge any additional politically motivated charges through all available legal means,” he said.

James’ case was also dismissed without prejudice.

So far, three other acting US attorneys supported by the Trump Justice Department and specifically appointed by Bondi have been disqualified, including Alina Habba in New Jersey, Sigal Chattah in Nevada and Bilal Essayli in California. Judges in each instance found that Bondi’s appointment process was outside the bounds of the law.

Bondi attempted to avoid a similar fate with Halligan once Comey challenged Halligan’s appointment and decided to dismiss the charge on that basis. The attorney general issued an order, signed and dated Oct. 31, appointing Halligan to the “additional position of Special Counsel” to oversee the Comey prosecution, but said his order applied retroactively to Sept. 22, when Halligan was first appointed federal prosecutor.

Although the attorney general has “the power to appoint subordinate officials to assist [her] in downloading [her] duties, the Government has not identified any authority that would allow the attorney general to go back in time and rewrite the terms of a previous appointment,” Currie wrote.

When contacted for comment, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told News themezone that “the facts of the allegations against Comey and James have not changed and this will not be the final word on this matter.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.