{"id":51981,"date":"2025-11-13T23:08:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T23:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/51981\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T23:08:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T23:08:06","slug":"judge-skeptical-of-prosecutors-authority-in-comey-james-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/51981\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge skeptical of prosecutor’s authority in Comey, James cases"},"content":{"rendered":"

HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) \u2014 A federal judge appeared skeptical Thursday that the head federal prosecutor in the cases of President Donald Trump\u2019s political opponents is legally in her position, The Washington Post has reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, who is temporarily handling the cases, reportedly had doubts that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi legally appointed interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan to oversee the state\u2019s eastern district. Halligan led the indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both of whom have had issues with the president<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Comey and James have argued that Bondi did not have the authority to appoint Halligan in September. Only the eastern Virginia district court was able to name a successor for Erik Siebert, who was interim attorney from January until this fall, the defendants said in filings last month, citing the same federal law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe official who signed the indictment\u2014and from all indications the sole official who presented the case to the grand jury\u2014was defectively appointed to her office as an interim U.S. Attorney,\u201d Comey said in a motion to dismiss his indictment. <\/p>\n

\u201cRather than conform to constitutional and statutory requirements for such appointments, … her purported appointment violated the congressionally designed and constitutionally compelled means for the Attorney General to appoint an official as interim U.S. Attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n

James\u2019s motion to dismiss had similar claims. Prosecutors rejected her and Comey<\/a>\u2019s allegations, though, explaining that the defendants were trying to \u201crewrite\u201d the law, Section 546 of Title 28.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough Defendants frame their arguments in constitutional terms, all agree that U.S. Attorneys are inferior officers whose appointment the Constitution permits Congress to vest \u2018by Law\u2019 in a \u2018Head of Department\u2019 like the Attorney General,” the prosecutors said in response. \u201cAll further agree that Congress, in 28 U.S.C. 546, did in fact vest the Attorney General with the power to appoint U.S. Attorneys for at least 120 days.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sole question is whether Section 546 authorized the Attorney General to appoint interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan in the circumstances here: where a previous interim U.S. Attorney vacated office after serving 120 days and being reappointed by the district court,\u201d the prosecutors continued. <\/p>\n

\u201cSection 546\u2019s text supplies a straightforward answer: yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The law states that, after an interim attorney’s term expires, a district court can appoint someone to serve until the position is filled. Currie reportedly said she plans to make a decision on the matter within the next two weeks.<\/p>\n

Have questions, concerns or tips? Send them to Ray at rjlewis@sbgtv.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HUNT VALLEY, Md. (TNND) \u2014 A federal judge appeared skeptical Thursday that the head federal prosecutor in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,153,152],"class_list":["post-51981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}