DOJ Taking Comey, James Indictments to Appeals Court

The Justice Department isn't letting two failed Trump administration prosecutions go quietly. Officials said Friday they will ask a federal appeals court to reinstate criminal cases against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both favorite targets of President Trump, the New York Times reports. The move comes after a federal judge threw out their indictments, ruling that the Trump-selected interim US attorney who obtained them, Lindsey Halligan, had been installed in violation of the Constitution's appointments clause.

Any appeal will go to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., and legal observers note the dispute could eventually reach the Supreme Court because it touches on the balance of power between the president and Congress, as well as the process for naming top federal prosecutors. Judge Cameron McGowan Currie found that Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi had improperly bypassed the required nomination-and-Senate-confirmation process by inserting Halligan as interim US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia after her predecessor declined to pursue charges against Comey.

Halligan, acting as the sole prosecutor before the grand juries, secured a 2020-related indictment of Comey on accusations that he lied to Congress and obstructed a congressional inquiry, and a separate indictment of James alleging she misled lenders to secure favorable mortgage terms on a Norfolk, Va., property. (NBC News reports James is alleged to have saved herself $50 a month.) Judge Currie later tossed both cases, saying Halligan's appointment was unconstitutional and that allowing such a workaround would render the constitution's Senate confirmation requirement "meaningless," as the Times puts it.

Before turning to the appeals court, the Justice Department tried and failed to resurrect the prosecutions through new grand jury efforts, but two grand juries declined to indict James again, and a federal judge ruled that prosecutorial evidence in the Comey case can't be used without a warrant, USA Today reports. As CBS News reports, the statute of limitations in Comey's case has since run out, which Currie noted in her November ruling.