Judge dismisses Comey, James indictments after finding that prosecutor was illegally appointed

WASHINGTON (AP) — A 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 President Donald Trump’s urging was illegally appointed by the Justice Department.

The rulings from U.S. 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 U.S. 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.

“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.

A White House spokeswoman said the rulings will “not be the final word on the matter” and Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed at an unrelated news conference that the Justice Department would pursue an “immediate appeal.” The department may also look to bring the cases again.

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 were still pending at the time of Monday’s rulings. Both have separately asserted that the prosecutions were vindictive and emblematic of a weaponized Justice Department. Comey’s lawyers last week, in moving to get his case tossed out, seized on a judge’s findings of a constellation of grand jury irregularities and missteps by Halligan. 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 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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!!!”

Comey was indicted three days after Halligan was sworn in by Bondi, and James was charged two weeks after that.

Though attorneys general do have the authority to name an interim U.S. attorney who can serve for 120 days, lawyers for Comey and James argued that once that period expires, the law gives federal judges in the district the exclusive say of who gets to fill the vacancy. By making a successive interim U.S. appointment and bypassing the role of courts, defense lawyers said, the Justice Department did an end-run around well-established law.

Currie says Halligan ‘unlawfully’ serving in her role

“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 U.S. 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 indictment from collapse. But Currie said such a retroactive appointment 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.”

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.

Comey was indicted just days before the 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 U.S. attorneys — in New Jersey, Los Angeles and Nevada — have served in their positions unlawfully but have permitted cases brought by their offices to proceed. But lawyers for Comey and James had argued that Currie’s ruling needed to go even further because Halligan was apparently the only prosecutor who presented evidence to the grand juries.

Comey has for years been one of Trump’s chief antagonists. Appointed FBI director in 2013 by 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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Associated Press writers Michael R. Sisak in New York and Lindsay Whitehurst and Alanna Durkin Richer in Memphis, Tennessee contributed to this report.

Eric Tucker, The Associated Press