The judge found<\/a> that the appointment of interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan in Alexandria, Virginia, was invalid.\n <\/p>\n\n Trump handpicked Halligan for the role amid increasing pressure to bring criminal cases against his political enemies, including Comey and James.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe Attorney General\u2019s attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid,\u201d Judge Cameron McGowan Currie wrote in her Monday order.\n <\/p>\n
\n According to Currie, \u201call actions flowing from Ms. Halligan\u2019s defective appointment\u201d including the indictments against Comey and James \u201cwere unlawful exercises of executive power and are hereby set aside.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The judge tossed out the cases \u201cwithout prejudice,\u201d leaving open the possibility that the cases against Comey and James can be brought again alleging the same conduct.\n <\/p>\n
\n CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.\n <\/p>\n
\n Halligan, a former White House adviser, was selected for the role after the Trump administration pushed out the previous interim US attorney amid increasing pressure to bring cases against Comey and James.\n <\/p>\n
\n In the cases against Comey \u2014 which Halligan brought before a grand jury just days after her appointment \u2014 and James, defense attorneys argued the 120-day period that an interim US attorney is allowed to serve prior to confirmation from the Senate or approval from the district\u2019s judges had already expired when Halligan took the position.\n <\/p>\n
\n This, they said, meant that Halligan\u2019s appointment was unlawful.\n <\/p>\n
\n Currie, in her order, wrote that unlawful appointment should \u201cinvalidate\u201d Halligan\u2019s actions \u2014 including presenting those two indictments to grand juries.\n <\/p>\n
\n Prosecutors who work under Halligan argued Attorney General Pam Bondi has full authority to appoint whomever she wants to the position as long as they are qualified, and that the 120-day period serves as a sort of check-in system for those interim US Attorneys appointed.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe implications of a contrary conclusion are extraordinary,\u201d Currie wrote of the Halligan appointment. \u201cIt would mean the Government could send any private citizen off the street \u2014 attorney or not \u2014 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. \u201c\n <\/p>\n
\n This is a developing story and will be updated.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge dismissed the indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-304244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}