White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Trump administration would appeal the decision and Comey should “pump the brakes on his victory lap”.
“It is our position that Lindsey Halligan is extremely qualified for this position, but more importantly, was legally appointed,” she told reporters at the White House.
‘A message has to be sent that the president of the United States cannot use the Department of Justice to target his political enemies.’
James Comey, former FBI director
“There was a judge who is clearly trying to shield Letitia James and James Comey from receiving accountability, and that’s why they took this unprecedented action to throw away the indictments against these two individuals.”
Comey said the case against him was based on malevolence and incompetence, and he expected Trump to come after him again. He praised the Justice Department lawyers who resisted pursuing the case to begin with.
“A message has to be sent that the president of the United States cannot use the Department of Justice to target his political enemies,” Comey said in an Instagram video.
“I don’t care what your politics are – you have to see that as fundamentally un-American and a threat to the rule of law that keeps all of us free.”
Protesters outside court when former FBI director James Comey pleaded not guilty in October.Credit: Bloomberg
‘Fundamental misstatements’
Halligan, who had no prosecutorial experience and was leading her first case, was separately excoriated by a magistrate in the Comey case for making “fundamental misstatements of the law” when obtaining the indictment from a grand jury.
Trump ordered Attorney-General Pam Bondi to appoint Halligan to the post after her predecessor Erik Siebert declined to pursue charges against Comey or James, citing a lack of credible evidence in both cases.
New York Attorney-General Letitia James also had the case against her thrown out by a federal judge.Credit: Bloomberg
Shortly after her appointment, Halligan alone secured indictments against Comey and James after other career prosecutors in the office refused to participate.
Both pleaded not guilty. James had been indicted on charges of bank fraud and lying to a financial institution.
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Siebert was appointed in an interim capacity after the Joe Biden-appointed prosecutor resigned. Siebert was never confirmed by the Senate and served under arrangements enabled by district judges. But it meant Bondi had in effect used up her one opportunity to appoint an interim attorney, the court found.
Lawyers for the Justice Department argued the law allowed the attorney-general to make multiple interim appointments for US attorneys. Still, Bondi sought to shore up the cases by issuing a retroactive order that installed Halligan as a “special attorney” assigned to both prosecutions.
Bondi’s order was issued on October 31 and backdated to September 22, three days before Comey was indicted.
Currie found this was not valid. “The government has identified no authority allowing the attorney-general to reach back in time and rewrite the terms of a past appointment,” she wrote.
“Regardless of what the Attorney-General ‘intended’, or ‘could have’ done, the fact remains that Ms Halligan was not an ‘attorney authorised by law’ to conduct grand jury proceedings when she secured Mr Comey’s indictment.”
The challenge to Halligan’s appointment was one of several efforts lawyers for Comey and James made to have the cases against them thrown out. Both also argued that the cases are “vindictive” prosecutions motivated by Trump’s animosity.
With AP, Reuters
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Judge throws out cases against Trump’s enemies, finds prosecutor illegally appointed
