DOJ appeals ruling that tanked Comey, James criminal cases

The Justice Department is appealing the ruling that resulted in the dismissal of criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The appeal, lodged in both cases, challenges a judge’s finding that the lead prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was illegally appointed to her position.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, at President Donald Trump’s urging, appointed Halligan in September as interim U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. Halligan, a former personal attorney to Trump with no prosecutorial experience, secured criminal charges against Comey and James within days.

But U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie concluded that Halligan should never have been in the role in the first place because her predecessor, Erik Siebert, had already filled the interim position for a legal maximum of 120 days. And because Halligan was the only prosecutor who signed the Comey and James indictments, Currie concluded that the indictments were defective and had to be tossed.

Comey was indicted in late September on charges that he lied to Congress in 2020, during a hearing related to the FBI’s investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia. James was charged with mortgage fraud related to a property she purchased in Virginia. Both pleaded not guilty and noted that they were indicted by Halligan just days after Trump demanded that his Justice Department quickly bring charges against his political adversaries.

The decision to appeal followed two failed efforts by Justice Department prosecutors to re-indict James — extraordinary rebukes by grand juries amid widespread indications that the charges against Comey and James were driven by Trump’s personal animus against them for his own legal travails.

Comey’s case is more complicated to revive because he was initially indicted just days before a five-year statute of limitations that expiredHis team contends that the failure to bring a valid indictment by the deadline suggests he can no longer be charged.