The Collapse of the Comey and Letitia James Prosecutions: What Today’s Dismissal Really Means

In a stunning turn in one of the most closely watched legal sagas of the Trump era, a federal judge today dismissed the criminal indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

According to a breaking report the court threw out both cases after finding that the appointment of Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. Attorney who brought the charges, was invalid under federal law and the Constitution’s Appointments Clause as per report from CNN.

On cable news, viewers saw the headline splashed across the bottom of the screen: “James Comey and Letitia James’ Cases Both Dismissed.” For Comey and James, these words represent the end of a months‑long legal assault. For the Justice Department and the Trump White House, they mark a rare and public rebuke from the federal judiciary.

This post walks through how we got here, why the judge dismissed the cases, and what this moment says about the rule of law in the United States.

How Did Comey and Letitia James End Up Indicted?

The prosecutions of James Comey and Letitia James were never “normal” cases.

• James Comey was charged in September with:
  • Making a false statement to Congress, and
  • Obstructing a congressional proceeding
  The charges stemmed from his 2020 Senate testimony about whether he had authorized an FBI colleague to act as an anonymous source in media stories. Comey pleaded not guilty and argued the prosecution was a political hit job fueled by President Trump’s personal vendetta.
• Letitia James, the New York Attorney General who successfully sued Trump and his company over civil fraud, was indicted later on:
  • Bank fraud, and
  • Making false statements to a financial institution
  Prosecutors claimed she misrepresented the use of a Virginia property to secure a favorable mortgage. She, too, pleaded not guilty and called the case retaliatory.

In both prosecutions, the same name kept resurfacing: Lindsey Halligan.

Lindsey Halligan: From Trump Ally to the Center of a Constitutional Fight

Halligan was, until recently, best known as one of Donald Trump’s personal lawyers and an insurance attorney with no prior prosecutorial experience.

That changed in September, when Attorney General Pam Bondi installed Halligan as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, days after Trump publicly blasted the sitting U.S. Attorney, Erik Siebert, for not bringing cases against Comey and Letitia James.

Multiple outlets reported the same pattern:

• Career prosecutors in the office had drafted “declination memos,” signaling there was not enough evidence to charge.
• Trump publicly demanded action against his enemies, posting on social media that “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
• Siebert resigned under intense pressure, and Halligan was immediately placed in charge.

Within days, Halligan personally walked into the grand jury room alone, without the experienced line prosecutors who had been on the cases, and obtained indictments against both Comey and James. Her signature was the only one on each charging document.

For defense lawyers and many outside observers, the optics were impossible to ignore: the president’s personal lawyer, newly installed as the region’s top federal prosecutor, using her new authority to prosecute his leading critics.

The Legal Time Bomb: Was Halligan Legally in the Job?

From the moment Halligan’s appointment became public, lawyers for Comey and Letitia James attacked it as unlawful.

Their core argument was technical but powerful:

1. Under federal law, the Attorney General can appoint an interim U.S. Attorney for 120 days.
2. After that 120-day window expires, the federal district court judges in that district, not the Attorney General, get to decide who fills the vacancy.
3. In Virginia, Bondi had already used her 120-day authority earlier in the year to appoint Erik Siebert as interim U.S. Attorney. When that period ran out, the district’s judges voted unanimously to keep Siebert in place.
4. When Siebert left under pressure in September, Bondi could not simply “reset the clock” and appoint Halligan as another interim U.S. Attorney, they argued. Any such appointment would be constitutionally defective. NPR

In other words, if Halligan was never lawfully in the job, she had no authority to bring charges, sign indictments, or speak for the United States in court.

Comey’s and James’s lawyers asked for the nuclear remedy: dismiss the indictments outright because they were obtained by a prosecutor who “did not lawfully possess” the power she was exercising.

Grand Jury Chaos and “Government Misconduct”

While the appointment fight was playing out in one courtroom, a separate judicial drama was unfolding in another.

A magistrate judge reviewing grand jury transcripts in the Comey case found what he called a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” and evidence of potential government misconduct:

• Halligan appeared to have misstated basic law to grand jurors, including suggesting Comey effectively had no right to remain silent, an error any first‑year law student should know to avoid.
• There were signs that attorney‑client privileged material may have been swept into the investigation.
• And crucially, it looked like the final indictment filed in court was not the same document that had been presented to and voted on by the full grand jury. PBS

In a later hearing, Justice Department lawyer Tyler Lemons conceded that the full grand jury never saw the revised two‑count indictment that was ultimately filed; only the foreperson and one other juror had. NBC News called it a “rare admission of fault” that could get the case thrown out.

Comey’s team argued that this misstep was fatal, especially because the statute of limitations expired only days after the rushed indictment. If there was never a valid indictment before the deadline, they said, the government was permanently out of time.

Vindictive Prosecution: Animus “Through a Megaphone”

Beyond these procedural blunders, defense lawyers painted a broader picture: that these cases were not just flawed, but vindictive.

Both Comey and Letitia James documented years of public attacks from Trump; tweets, rally chants, and TV outbursts demanding they be jailed. Legal analysts described it as “animus through a megaphone.” Lawfare

Key pieces of that story:

• Trump repeatedly branded Comey a “slimeball” and a traitor who should be prosecuted over the Russia investigation.
• He targeted Letitia James after she pursued the civil fraud case against him, promising, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you.”
• When prosecutors in Virginia balked, Trump blasted them publicly and praised Halligan by name before she was even appointed to the job.

Motions filed on behalf of both defendants argued that Halligan was effectively a “stalking horse” or “puppet” installed to turn Trump’s demands for retribution into criminal charges.

Vindictive‑prosecution claims are famously hard to win. Courts are extremely reluctant to second‑guess charging decisions, even in politically sensitive cases. But the record here was so unusual that judges openly described the situation as “extraordinary” and “uncharted legal territory.”

Today’s Decision: Both Indictments Dismissed

All of that background built to today.

According to CNN’s early write‑up, the federal judge overseeing the appointment issue has now ruled that Lindsey Halligan’s appointment was invalid. Because she lacked lawful authority to serve as interim U.S. Attorney, the indictments she obtained against James Comey and Letitia James cannot stand. The judge therefore dismissed both cases.

We do not yet have every detail from the written order, including:

• Whether the dismissals are with prejudice (meaning the cases cannot be refiled) or without prejudice (leaving theoretical room for a properly appointed prosecutor to bring new charges), and
• How the judge handled the Justice Department’s attempt to “fix” things after the fact by retroactively naming Halligan a special attorney and ratifying her actions.

But the bottom line is clear: these specific indictments are dead.

For Comey and Letitia James, that means the looming criminal trials in Alexandria, including Comey’s January trial date, are off the calendar. For the Justice Department, it is an unusually public and sweeping defeat.

What Happens Next?

There are a few paths forward from here:

1. The Justice Department Appeals
   DOJ can ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to reverse the dismissal. That would require the government to argue that:
   • Bondi did have legal authority to appoint Halligan when she did, or
   • Even if she did not, her later ratification as a “special attorney” cured any defect.
   Appeals, however, would keep the story in the headlines and could invite an even broader appellate ruling on the limits of presidential power over prosecutions.
2. New Indictments by a Different Prosecutor
   If the dismissals are without prejudice and the statute of limitations has not fully closed off every theory of liability, a properly appointed U.S. Attorney could try to re‑present the cases to a new grand jury. Politically and practically, though, that would be an uphill climb. Career prosecutors had already signaled deep doubts about the evidence, and the perception that these were revenge prosecutions will be hard to shake.
3. Quiet Burial
   The most likely outcome is that DOJ, now under intense judicial scrutiny, chooses not to refile. The department may decide the institutional cost of continuing is higher than the benefit of trying to salvage the cases.

Why This Moment Matters

Today’s dismissals are about far more than two high‑profile defendants.

They go to the heart of a basic democratic question: Can the Justice Department be turned into a weapon for punishing political enemies, or are there still guardrails strong enough to stop that from happening?

Several themes stand out:

• The importance of process. The judge did not declare Comey and James innocent. Instead, the court said that the government itself broke the rules, by bypassing appointment procedures and, in Comey’s case, mishandling the grand jury. In our system, even the most powerful prosecutors have to follow the law.
• The role of the judiciary as a check. In a highly charged political climate, federal judges across the ideological spectrum have now pushed back on temporary U.S. Attorney appointments they see as attempts to skirt Senate confirmation and judicial oversight. This is part of a broader pattern of courts policing the outer edges of executive power.
• The danger of politicized prosecutions. Whatever you think of James Comey or Letitia James personally, the record of presidential pressure, tweets, public threats, and pointed demands for charges would have set a dangerous precedent if courts had simply looked the other way. By dismissing the cases, the judge has effectively said that “justice” cannot be defined as “whatever the president wants.”

Final Thoughts

For months, these prosecutions have been Exhibit A in debates over whether the United States is slipping toward using criminal law as a blunt instrument of political retaliation. Today, a federal judge drew a firm line and said: no.

The story is not entirely over; appeals and political fallout are still to come. But for now, James Comey and Letitia James walk away from the Alexandria courthouse without the prospect of federal prison hanging over their heads.

And for the rest of us, today’s ruling is a reminder that, even in a deeply polarized era, there are still levers inside the system capable of restraining those who would twist it for personal revenge.