A federal judge in Virginia has dismissed the Justice Department’s criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, ruling that the acting U.S. attorney who secured the indictments was unlawfully appointed. The dismissals were issued without prejudice, leaving open the possibility that prosecutors could try to bring new charges.
On November 24, 2025, U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie dismissed criminal cases against James Comey and Letitia James in the Eastern District of Virginia after concluding that the acting U.S. attorney who obtained the indictments, Lindsey Halligan, had been unlawfully appointed.
In a written opinion quoted by NPR and other outlets, Currie said that “all actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment,” including the indictments of Comey and James, “were unlawful exercises of executive power and are hereby set aside.”
Public radio reporting based on court records states that Trump tapped Halligan as acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after pushing out the previous top federal prosecutor, Erik Siebert, who had expressed doubts about bringing charges against both Comey and James. Halligan is described by NPR as a former insurance attorney who previously served as one of Donald Trump’s personal lawyers and later joined his administration as a White House aide.
According to NPR’s account of the ruling, Halligan was sworn in as acting U.S. attorney on September 22, 2025. Three days later, on September 25, a federal grand jury returned a two‑count indictment against Comey, charging him with making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding in connection with his September 30, 2020, Senate testimony about the FBI’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. He pleaded not guilty. Reporting by NPR and other outlets notes that the indictment came just days before the statute of limitations was set to expire.
Two weeks after the Comey indictment, Halligan obtained an indictment against James on one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution. As summarized in coverage by the Associated Press and other organizations, the charges stem from a Virginia mortgage in which James allegedly misrepresented the nature of a property she purchased in Norfolk, Virginia, in order to secure better loan terms. James has denied wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty at an October 2025 arraignment.
NPR reports that in both cases Halligan was the sole prosecutor who appeared before the grand juries. Days before Halligan was sworn in as acting U.S. attorney, Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Justice Department in a social media post to prosecute Comey, James and Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff. Schiff has not been charged, though NPR notes that federal prosecutors are investigating him in a separate mortgage‑fraud probe.
The statute governing interim U.S. attorney appointments limits the attorney general’s power to install an acting prosecutor to 120 days, after which appointment authority shifts to the relevant district court. According to a detailed account of Currie’s opinion in Reuters and other outlets, the judge found that Halligan’s installation as acting U.S. attorney violated those statutory limits and therefore invalidated the steps she took in the Comey and James prosecutions.
Legal analysts cited by multiple outlets say the dismissals, which Currie entered without prejudice, allow the Justice Department to seek new indictments through a lawfully appointed prosecutor. At the same time, coverage by the Associated Press and others notes that the running of the statute of limitations may effectively bar any renewed prosecution of Comey, while leaving more room for potential charges against James.
James publicly responded to the ruling by calling the case against her baseless and politically motivated. In an earlier statement reported by NPR at the time of her indictment, she said, “I remain fearless in the face of these baseless charges as I continue fighting for New Yorkers every single day.” Abbe Lowell, an attorney for James, said in a statement carried by NPR that “the President went to extreme measures to substitute one of his allies to bring these baseless charges after career prosecutors refused,” framing the prosecution as an effort to target James for her work in New York.
Comey has also denied the allegations and has characterized the prosecution as driven by politics, according to reporting by national outlets. However, the specific quotation attributed to him in some commentary — describing the case as “a prosecution based on malevolence and incompetence” and warning that “the president… cannot use the Department of Justice to target his political enemies” — does not appear verbatim in the news coverage reviewed and therefore cannot be independently verified.
The Justice Department has defended Halligan’s appointment and maintained in court filings that it followed proper procedures, NPR reports. Following Currie’s ruling, department officials have indicated they intend to appeal. The White House and Trump’s allies have similarly argued that Halligan’s appointment was lawful and that Comey and James should still face criminal accountability, according to accounts from several national news organizations.
The ruling in Virginia comes amid broader legal challenges to Trump‑era appointments of politically connected prosecutors. News reports note that federal judges in at least one other state have issued similar rulings questioning the legality of interim U.S. attorney selections linked to politically sensitive cases, and legal experts say some of these disputes could eventually reach the Supreme Court.
