By:Jacob Fischler-
A senior federal judge dismissed charges Monday against two public officials with long-running public disputes with President Donald Trump, saying the controversial appointment of the president’s former personal attorney as a prosecutor doomed the cases.
Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, whom former President Bill Clinton appointed to the bench in South Carolina, wrote in a Monday order that Attorney General Pam Bondi did not have the authority to make Lindsey Halligan the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The judge said the deadline for an interim appointee to that position had lapsed.
Because that process was invalid, the prosecutions against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both of whom had investigated or prosecuted Trump, must be dropped, Currie wrote.
Currie dismissed the indictments without prejudice, meaning they could be revived. But at least in Comey’s case, in which charges were brought on the eve of the statute of limitations expiring, that appeared unlikely.
120-day clock
U.S. attorneys are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but the attorney general can appoint someone on an interim basis for 120 days. After that, the judges in the district are responsible for appointing an interim prosecutor.
“Ms. Halligan was not appointed in a manner consistent with this framework,” Currie wrote.
Bondi appointed Erik Siebert as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in January, while his confirmation was pending in the Senate. After 120 days, the judges in the district allowed him to continue.
Siebert resigned in September, reportedly under pressure from Trump and Bondi to bring charges against Comey. Bondi then named Halligan, at the time a White House aide who had also worked for Trump in a private capacity, as the interim U.S. attorney.
But Bondi could not do that because, after 120 days, the responsibility for naming an interim U.S. attorney fell to the district court judges, Currie wrote.
“The 120-day clock began running with Mr. Siebert’s appointment on Jan. 21, 2025,” she wrote. “When that clock expired on May 21, 2025, so too did the Attorney General’s appointment authority. 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.”
Quick indictment
Halligan, after gaining office in September, quickly secured a two-count indictment against the former FBI chief from a grand jury in Alexandria. Comey was accused of lying to Congress about whether he had authorized a press leak of information related to an FBI investigation of Russian actors’ involvement in Trump’s first presidential campaign.
However, U.S. District Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick wrote last week that issues with evidence, testimony and statements to the grand jury in the case outweighed the usual heavily guarded secrecy of proceedings. He said “profound investigative missteps” could result in the dismissal of Comey’s indictment.
Comey has pleaded not guilty.
James won a civil case against Trump related to business fraud, though a state appeals court later overturned the sentence as overly punitive.
Trump has publicly blasted James and Comey as using the mechanisms of legal proceedings to persecute him.
In an extraordinary public message to Bondi just before Halligan replaced Siebert, Trump complained that the prosecutions against both were not developing faster.
The Justice Department did not respond to a message seeking comment Monday.