Federal Judge Rules Trump-Aligned Prosecutor Was Unlawfully Appointed, Crushing Indictments Against Comey and Letitia JamesMay be an image of one or more people and the Oval Office
The American late-night political drama has been met with a harsh dose of legal reality. In a development that has sent shockwaves through Washington, a federal judge has effectively halted a high-profile prosecution campaign widely believed to be motivated by political revenge and launched by allies of President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie officially tossed the criminal indictments filed against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. This is not merely a legal victory for two prominent political opponents of Trump; it is a public indictment of the misuse of power within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
The core reason for the dismissal was not the merits of the allegations themselves, but a profound Constitutional failing: the sole prosecutor responsible for securing the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was found to have been unlawfully appointed to the post of Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. She lacked the proper, lawful authority to hold the chair, rendering everything she touched legally tainted.
Unlawful Appointment: “Everything She Touched Went Up In Smoke”
The judge’s ruling exposes a deeply troubling pattern: a political administration seeking to bypass the Senate confirmation process to install interim prosecutors who would serve specific political ends.
The office in question became the focal point of this political theater. According to sources, the office’s prior top prosecutor, Erik Siebert, was subjected to intense pressure and eventually resigned after being pushed to indict Comey just before the statute of limitations was set to expire. In Siebert’s wake, Trump allies reportedly leaned heavily on the system to install Lindsey Halligan, a figure deemed likely to execute the desired political agenda.
Halligan then became the sole prosecutor who took the charges against Comey and Letitia James to the respective grand juries. In a legal system where the legitimacy of the prosecutor is paramount, lawyers for both Comey and James immediately challenged her authority. The courts agreed—the indictments could not stand under a prosecutor who should not have been in the chair.
As noted in the original reporting, the implication of the ruling is brutal and direct: “the person Trump appointed to do his bidding wasn’t actually allowed to be there — and everything she touched in those prosecutions went up in smoke.”
This is not an isolated incident. Halligan is reportedly the fourth Trump-aligned U.S. attorney a judge has found to be unlawfully appointed. This worrying pattern transforms the entire spectacle from a legitimate legal process into a political sideshow engineered to deliver politically motivated outcomes.
Comey and James: The Cost of Vengeance
The cases against James Comey and Letitia James were always viewed in the court of public opinion as central elements of a broader political vengeance campaign.
James Comey, who was dramatically fired by Trump as FBI Director, was indicted on charges including making false statements and obstruction of Congress, focusing on his handling of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and the alleged leaking of confidential information. Trump celebrated the indictment publicly, famously taking to his social media platform to call Comey:
“one of the worst people this country has ever seen.”
Similarly, New York Attorney General Letitia James, who had filed a massive civil fraud suit against Trump and the Trump Organization, was later hit with federal charges alleging bank fraud and false statements related to a mortgage transaction in Norfolk, Virginia. James quickly retaliated, calling the charges “baseless” and accusing the administration of “weaponizing the justice system for political revenge.”
The absence of career prosecutors backing Halligan’s efforts—unlike some other Trump-related cases where career staff helped secure charges—made the resulting blowback from the court even more damning, underscoring the partisan nature of the endeavor.
The Constitutional Peril and “Statutory Contradiction”
The repeated judicial overturn of interim prosecutors appointed by the administration highlights a severe gap in the U.S. legal system’s checks and balances, specifically concerning the 8th Amendment of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
Abbe Lowell, representing James, sharply called out the profound “statutory contradiction” that this pattern represents. The core threat is clear: if presidents are allowed to endlessly shuffle interim prosecutors to avoid Senate confirmation, the confirmation process itself—a fundamental mechanism of Constitutional power-sharing—becomes meaningless.
Comey’s lawyer echoed this grave concern, warning:
“this would let the government sidestep checks and confirmations indefinitely.”
Judge Currie’s ruling is far more than a technicality. It is a powerful reminder that the courts still function as a vital check against the “raw partisan weaponization” of the Justice Department. By dismantling these prosecutions on administrative and Constitutional grounds, the court sent a clear message: political goals do not justify the disregard of foundational legal processes.
The ruling underscores that Trump’s political prosecutions were always primarily about vengeance, not justice. When a political administration attempts to turn the Justice Department into a political hit squad and cuts corners in the process, the courts will notice, and judges will act. The only thing this sequence of events proves is that some Republican factions appear to prefer chaos over constitutional process. The rule of law, though battered, has once again pushed back.