Judge tosses Trump DOJ cases against Comey, James

What happened

U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie on Monday threw out the Trump administration’s criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Currie ruled that Lindsey Halligan, the insurance lawyer and White House aide hand-picked by President Donald Trump to prosecute both cases, had been “unlawfully” installed as U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, rendering both indictments void. But the judge dismissed both cases “without prejudice,” giving the Justice Department a chance to attempt a do-over.

Who said what

Currie’s twin rulings are the most “significant setback yet” for Trump’s ongoing effort to “force the criminal justice system to punish his perceived foes,” said The New York Times. The judge’s disqualification of Halligan also “added to a string of successful challenges” of Trump’s efforts to appoint U.S. attorneys outside the “customary Senate confirmation process,” The Wall Street Journal said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi had “defended Halligan’s appointment” but also named her a “‘Special Attorney,’ presumably as a way to protect the indictments from the possibility of collapse,” The Associated Press said. Currie rejected that attempt at retroactive validation, saying it would allow the government to “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.”

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Disqualifying Halligan was “arguably the least painful way for the Justice Department to lose the Comey and James cases,” Politico said, because it left “unresolved the most explosive question in each: whether the indictments were the product of Trump’s personal animus.” Comey said on social media that “Trump will probably come after me again,” but “my attitude is going to be the same: I’m innocent. I am not afraid. And I believe in an independent federal judiciary.”

What next?

Bondi said the Justice Department would pursue an “immediate appeal” of the cases. Lawfully appointed prosecutors could try to revive the cases, though they would “face complications” with the Comey charges, as the five-year statute of limitations ended in September, the Journal said.