NY Attorney General Letitia and Former FBI Director James Comey.
Michael M. Santiago | Cheriss May | Nurphoto | Getty Images
A federal judge on Monday dismissed criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, ruling that Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. attorney who brought both indictments, was invalidly appointed.
Halligan, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, had been installed as prosecutor in violation of the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, senior U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie ruled in both cases in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.
“I conclude that all actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment, including securing and signing Ms. James’s indictment, constitute unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside,” Currie ruled. An identical line appears in a separate order scrapping Comey’s case.
The cases were both dismissed “without prejudice,” potentially allowing charges to be filed again at a later date.
The rulings are a major blow to Trump, who had openly pushed Attorney General Pam Bondi to take legal action against Comey, James and other perceived political foes.
“The facts of the indictments against Comey and James have not changed and this will not be the final word on this matter,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told CNBC in a statement.
Bondi said later, “We’ll be taking all available legal action, including an immediate appeal to hold Letitia James and James Comey accountable for their unlawful conduct.”
Halligan is the fourth U.S. attorney of the second Trump administration to have been deemed wrongfully appointed by a judge.
Comey, in an Instagram post celebrating the dismissal, said his prosecution was “based on malevolence and incompetence, and a reflection of what the Department of Justice has become under Donald Trump, which is heartbreaking.”
“I know that Donald Trump will probably come after me again,” Comey said, “and my attitude is going to be the same: I’m innocent, I am not afraid, and I believe in an independent federal judiciary, the gift from our founders that protects us from a would-be tyrant.”
Halligan’s office declined to comment on Currie’s rulings. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
“I am heartened by today’s victory and grateful for the prayers and support I have received from around the country,” James said in a statement following the dismissal. “I remain fearless in the face of these baseless charges as I continue fighting for New Yorkers every single day.”
Comey was charged in late September on counts of making a false statement and obstruction stemming from his testimony to Congress years earlier.
James was charged in mid-October with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution in connection with a mortgage she obtained to buy a home in 2020.
Both had asked the judges in their respective cases to throw out the charges on the grounds that they were being vindictively prosecuted.
The indictment against Comey, a longtime target of Trump’s ire, came days before a five-year statute of limitations was set to expire on Sept. 30.
Currie’s ruling suggested that Comey’s statute of limitations remained in effect. In a footnote, the judge quoted a ruling from a separate case, which held, “An invalid indictment … cannot serve to block the door of limitations as it swings closed.”
The charges against Comey also came less than a week after Bondi, at Trump’s behest, had appointed Halligan as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The prior U.S. attorney for the district, Erik Siebert, had resigned after reportedly expressing concern about pursuing charges against Comey — and after Trump said publicly that he wanted Siebert out.
In addition to the constitutional violation, Currie determined that Halligan’s installation ran afoul of a statutory mechanism for appointing interim U.S. attorneys.
The law, which gives the attorney general 120 days to make interim appointments, had been triggered by the appointment of Siebert on Jan. 21, the judge wrote.
When that clock ran out on May 21, “so too did the Attorney General’s appointment authority,” Currie ruled.
Halligan has therefore “been unlawfully serving in that role” since her appointment on Sept. 22, Currie wrote.
The judge noted that in both cases, Halligan was the only prosecutor who presented information to the grand juries that ultimately returned the indictments.
James’ attorney, Abbe Lowell, said he would challenge “any further politically motivated charges” from the Trump administration.
“The President went to extreme measures to substitute one of his allies to bring these baseless charges after career prosecutors refused,” Lowell said in a statement. “This case was not about justice or the law; it was about targeting Attorney General James for what she stood for and who she challenged.”