Judge voids Comey and Letitia James indictments, finding Trump's hand-picked prosecutor was never lawfully appointed

Erik Siebert was appointed interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia on Jan. 21, 2025. Under 28 U.S.C. § 546, an attorney general can name an interim U.S. attorney who may serve for 120 days; after that window expires, the district's federal judges gain exclusive authority to fill the vacancy.

Siebert's 120-day clock expired on May 21, 2025. When that deadline passed, the federal judges of the Eastern District unanimously voted to keep Siebert in place under their independent appointment authority — standard practice when the AG's window closes. Career prosecutors under Siebert reviewed the evidence against both Comey and James and determined the cases were too weak to bring: the Comey case rested on testimony about notes he gave to a friend in 2017, and the James case alleged she saved roughly $50 a month on a mortgage by misrepresenting a Norfolk property as a second home rather than an investment property.

Trump had been openly demanding prosecution of Comey since his first term, and during 2025 escalated public pressure on Bondi through Truth Social. On the night of Sept. 18, Trump posted that it was killing his 'reputation and credibility' that Comey and James hadn't been charged, and wrote: 'JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!' Within four days, Siebert was gone.

Siebert resigned rather than be fired — sources told ABC News he had 'resisted bringing the cases' and career prosecutors in his office had determined 'evidence against them would likely fail to convince a jury.' Bondi then named Halligan, who had served on Trump's legal defense team in the federal classified documents case and had no prior prosecutorial experience, as the new interim U.S. attorney on Sept. 22.

Halligan moved with extraordinary speed. On Sept. 25 — three days after her installation and five days before the five-year statute of limitations on the Comey charges would have expired — she personally presented a two-count indictment against Comey to a grand jury.

The counts charged him with making a false statement to Congress during September 2020 testimony and obstruction of a congressional proceeding. Halligan was the only prosecutor to present the case and sign the indictment; no other DOJ attorney participated in the grand jury presentation. The indictment was returned the same day.

On Oct. 9, Halligan secured a second indictment against Letitia James, charging her with bank fraud and making a false statement to a financial institution for allegedly misrepresenting a Norfolk, Virginia property as a second home to secure more favorable mortgage terms. Both defendants pleaded not guilty.

The legal defect at the heart of the cases: the 120-day clock ran from Siebert's initial appointment on Jan. 21, not from Halligan's September appointment. Because Siebert's clock had already expired on May 21, 2025, Bondi no longer had statutory authority to make a new AG interim appointment — that authority had passed to the district judges. Halligan's September installation was therefore void from inception.

Judge Currie, a Clinton appointee sitting by designation from South Carolina (local judges were recused because they would be involved in selecting Halligan's replacement), heard arguments in November and issued her ruling on Nov. 24. '

The 120-day clock began running with Mr. Siebert's appointment on January 21, 2025,' Currie wrote. 'When that clock expired on May 21, 2025, so too did the Attorney General's appointment authority. Consequently, Ms. Halligan has been unlawfully serving in that role since September 22, 2025.'

Bondi's DOJ made two attempts to salvage the cases. First, on Oct. 31, it submitted a retroactive order purporting to name Halligan a 'special attorney' and ratifying her grand jury appearances as of Sept. 22.

Judge Currie rejected this: 'The Attorney General has not pointed to any authority that allows her to reach back in time and rewrite the terms of a past appointment.'

She also found Bondi 'couldn't have' reviewed all of Halligan's grand jury presentation because a portion of the transcript — from 4:28 p.m. until the indictment was returned — was missing, apparently because no court reporter was present during grand jury deliberations. Second, after the Nov. 24 dismissal, the DOJ attempted to re-indict James before two separate grand juries using different prosecutors. Both grand juries declined to return indictments. The DOJ filed an appeal of Currie's ruling on Dec. 19.

Comey's attorney Patrick Fitzgerald — the former U.S. attorney who prosecuted Scooter Libby in the Valerie Plame case — stated after the ruling that 'because the indictment is void, the statute of limitations has run and there can be no further indictment' against Comey. This interpretation, if upheld on appeal, would mean Comey faces no further federal criminal jeopardy for the conduct alleged in the September 2025 indictment.

James's situation is different: bank fraud carries a 10-year statute of limitations under federal law, meaning the government could potentially refile if Currie's ruling is reversed on appeal or if a new grand jury can be persuaded to indict. James's attorney Abbe Lowell pledged to fight 'any further politically motivated charges.'

Both Comey and James appeared in their respective indictments' target lists from Kash Patel's 2023 book 'Government Gangsters,' which named more than 50 officials Patel characterized as members of the 'deep state' who had undermined Trump. The list was widely treated as a blueprint for prosecutorial targets after Trump took office in January 2025.

Patel, as FBI director, was in regular communication with Bondi's DOJ about personnel and prosecution decisions. The pattern: targets were selected from a pre-existing enemies list, a cooperative U.S. attorney was removed when he refused to act, and a loyalist without prosecution experience was installed specifically to bring the cases — a sequence the judge found 'extraordinary' in its implications for the independence of federal grand juries.

The pattern of unlawful U.S. attorney appointments extended beyond the Eastern District of Virginia. Federal judges in New Jersey, Nevada, California (Los Angeles), and other districts similarly found that Trump-installed interim U.S. attorneys had served beyond the 120-day limit without proper court authorization. The DOJ appealed those rulings as well.

Legal scholars described the administration's strategy as a systematic attempt to install loyalists as prosecutors by exploiting ambiguity in the 120-day succession statute, then retroactively ratifying their actions when challenged.

Judge Currie's ruling directly rejected that strategy: 'It would mean the Government could send any private citizen off the street — attorney or not — into the grand jury room to secure an indictment so long as the Attorney General gives her approval after the fact. That cannot be the law.'