In a courtroom far from the political shouting matches of Washington, a federal judge quietly yanked the plug on two high-voltage prosecutions—those against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James—after finding that the prosecutor steering the cases never had the legal keys to the car.
The fallout was immediate: both sprawling cases, personally championed by Donald Trump, vanished in a puff of constitutional smoke.
At the center of the implosion stood Lindsey Halligan, a former personal lawyer to Trump, abruptly elevated to serve as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia despite having no background as a prosecutor. Judge Cameron McGowan Currie concluded that Halligan’s appointment violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and federal law, meaning every action she touched—including the indictments—was steeped in invalid authority.
In Currie’s crisp words, Halligan possessed “no legal authority” to bring charges against either Comey or James. And with that, the indictments were erased “without prejudice,” leaving the Justice Department the option—at least theoretically—to try again with someone who actually holds the job lawfully.
The Justice Department’s leadership bristled. The Attorney General vowed immediate appeal and insisted Halligan, newly labeled a “special attorney,” could keep fighting in court. But the ruling cast a long shadow over the strategy, with Currie striking down every attempt to retroactively salvage Halligan’s work.
Comey and Letitia James responded with something close to relief. Comey, in an online video, blasted the prosecution as a blend of hostility and ineptitude, calling it emblematic of what the Justice Department had become. James’ legal team signaled readiness to challenge any encore attempt to revive the cases.
And an encore may never arrive for Comey. The statute of limitations expired weeks ago, a ticking clock that has already emboldened his attorneys to argue that prosecutors’ time has run out.
Both Comey and James have long been fixtures in Trump’s crosshairs—Comey for supervising the Russia probe and later calling Trump unfit for office, and James for dismantling Trump’s real estate empire in court. Their indictments were secured only after career prosecutors refused to play along, leaving Halligan alone to march forward.
But once lawyers for the defendants spotlighted the obscure but powerful rules governing interim U.S. Attorney appointments—the 120-day limit, the Senate’s constitutional role, the risk of indefinite appointments—the scaffolding beneath the cases collapsed.
Currie also noted that her review was necessary because dozens of Virginia judges had touched Halligan’s predecessor’s appointment, meaning someone outside the state needed to scrutinize the legitimacy of her elevation.
Scrutiny is exactly what Halligan received. Courts had already questioned her legal theories, her grand jury instructions, and even whether the full jury saw the final indictment drafts. Monday’s ruling merely turned that simmering concern into a decisive full stop.
With the judge’s pen, two of Trump’s most symbolically charged prosecutions fell apart—not through fiery political drama, but through the quiet, relentless logic of constitutional law.
