Federal Judge Dismisses Indictments Against Letitia James and Comey, Ruling Halligan's Appointment Unlawful

U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie dismissed criminal indictments against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey on November 24, 2025, ruling that interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan lacked lawful authority to bring the cases. In separate but parallel rulings, Judge Currie found that “all actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment…were unlawful exercises of executive power and are hereby set aside.” The dismissals represented a major judicial rebuke of the Trump administration’s weaponization of the Justice Department against political opponents.

Judge Currie’s legal analysis centered on federal statute governing interim U.S. attorneys, which limits such appointees to 120-day terms unless Senate-confirmed. The judge determined that after Trump forced out Erik Siebert on September 19, 2025, the statutory authority to name a replacement belonged to federal judges of the Eastern District of Virginia—not Attorney General Pam Bondi—because Siebert had not been Senate-confirmed. By appointing Halligan on September 20, 2025, Bondi exceeded her legal authority. Judge Currie described the situation as “unique, if not unprecedented” where “an unconstitutionally appointed prosecutor…acted alone in conducting a grand jury proceeding.” The judge characterized Halligan as “a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience” who nonetheless wielded the full prosecutorial power of the United States government.

The dismissals came one week after Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick’s devastating November 17 ruling that identified “a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” in the Comey prosecution, including Halligan’s fundamental misstatements of law to the grand jury and use of potentially tainted evidence. Judge Fitzpatrick had found that Halligan falsely suggested to grand jurors that Comey lacked Fifth Amendment rights and misled them about the strength of the government’s evidence. On November 19, prosecutors admitted that the full grand jury never reviewed the final indictment against Comey—only two grand jurors saw the document. These revelations of prosecutorial misconduct set the stage for Judge Currie’s constitutional ruling dismissing both cases.

The cases arose directly from Trump’s September 20, 2025 Truth Social post—which he intended as a private message but accidentally posted publicly—demanding that Bondi prosecute Comey, James, and Senator Adam Schiff, declaring them “all guilty as hell.” Within days of Halligan’s appointment, she secured indictments against both Comey and James, despite career prosecutors’ previous determinations that evidence was insufficient. Erik Siebert had been forced to resign specifically because he refused to bring charges against James without adequate evidence after a five-month investigation involving 15 witnesses found no clear proof of intentional wrongdoing. Trump openly stated he wanted Siebert “out” of the position, replacing him with his former personal attorney Halligan who had zero prosecutorial experience but absolute loyalty.

The Letitia James prosecution was particularly transparent in its retaliatory nature. James had secured a $450 million civil fraud judgment against Trump and his organization in early 2024, and Trump had repeatedly and publicly demanded her prosecution. The federal charges against James alleged she saved $594 annually on a mortgage by misrepresenting a Norfolk, Virginia property’s use—a prosecution that legal experts viewed as extraordinarily thin for federal bank fraud charges. James had filed a comprehensive vindictive prosecution motion on November 7, 2025, arguing the case was orchestrated by Trump for political revenge and citing his repeated public demands that Bondi prosecute her.

Attorney General Bondi announced the Justice Department “will be taking all available legal action, including an immediate appeal,” defending Halligan as “an excellent” attorney. However, Comey’s attorney Patrick Fitzgerald argued the ruling effectively ends the Comey prosecution because the five-year statute of limitations has expired. James’s attorney Abbe Lowell stated the judge’s order “acknowledges what’s been clear…The President went to extreme measures to substitute one of his allies” to pursue politically motivated prosecutions. The dismissals without prejudice theoretically allow the government to refile charges, but the expiration of statutes of limitation and the fundamental constitutional defects identified by two federal judges make successful reprosecution unlikely. The ruling represents a significant instance of judicial independence checking executive overreach and political prosecution.