Federal Judges Throw Out Indictments of Comey and Letitia James, Dealing Blow to Trump Administration’s Prosecutions

By Adam Goldman and Glenn Thrush The New York Times | November 27, 2025

WASHINGTON — In a pair of stinging rulings, federal judges have dismissed criminal indictments against James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general, delivering a significant setback to the Trump administration’s effort to pursue legal action against some of the president’s most prominent antagonists.

The decisions, issued Monday and Tuesday in federal courts in South Carolina and Virginia, did not address the substantive merits of the charges. Instead, they focused on procedural and constitutional defects that judges described as fundamental flaws in how the cases were brought.

In the more consequential ruling, Senior Judge Cameron McGowan Currie of the District of South Carolina held that the interim United States attorney who signed both indictments, Lindsey Halligan — a former Trump campaign lawyer with no prior prosecutorial experience — had been unlawfully appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi. Judge Currie, a Clinton appointee, ruled that Ms. Halligan’s appointment violated federal statutes governing interim vacancies and that all actions she took, including obtaining and signing the indictments, were therefore “unlawful exercises of executive power.”

The decision effectively nullified the charges against Mr. Comey (accused of making false statements to Congress) and Ms. James (accused of mortgage fraud in connection with civil actions against Trump entities). Because the statute of limitations has expired on some underlying allegations against Mr. Comey, prosecutors may be unable to refile those counts.

In a separate but related development in the Eastern District of Virginia, Magistrate Judge William E. Fitzpatrick sharply criticized the grand jury process in the Comey case, describing a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps.” Judge Fitzpatrick cited misstatements of law presented to grand jurors, the possible exposure of privileged material, and a chaotic indictment process that left unclear whether the grand jury had reviewed the final charging document. He ordered the disclosure of grand jury materials to Mr. Comey’s defense team — an extraordinary step — though the order has been stayed pending appeal.

The Justice Department immediately announced plans to appeal both rulings. In a statement, a spokesman called Judge Currie’s decision “a hyper-technical reading” of appointment statutes and insisted that Ms. Bondi had acted within her authority. Attorney General Bondi, appearing on Fox News on Wednesday, described the dismissals as “temporary procedural hurdles” and vowed to “reconstitute these cases properly.”

Democratic leaders and civil liberties groups hailed the rulings as a victory for the rule of law. “These cases always smelled of political retribution,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. “Today federal judges confirmed what we knew from the start.”

Mr. Comey, who has maintained the prosecution was retaliation for his role in the 2016 Russia investigation, issued a brief statement: “I am grateful to the courts for seeing through this.” Ms. James, whose office has pursued multiple civil cases against Trump businesses, called the dismissal “complete vindication.”

The rulings represent the most significant judicial repudiation to date of the Trump administration’s aggressive use of the Justice Department against perceived enemies. They follow a pattern seen earlier in the term when courts invalidated other high-profile appointments and actions, including attempts to install loyalists in acting roles beyond statutory limits.

Legal experts said the decisions could have broader implications. “This is a clear message that courts will police the basic mechanics of how prosecutors are appointed and how indictments are obtained,” said Jessica Roth, a former federal prosecutor and professor at Cardozo School of Law. “It’s a firewall against the politicization everyone feared.”

Inside the Justice Department, the dismissals have caused consternation. Current and former officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, described frantic efforts to determine whether other indictments signed by Ms. Halligan or handled under similar interim arrangements might be vulnerable. The episode has also intensified scrutiny of Ms. Bondi, who had promised during her confirmation hearings to insulate the department from political influence.

For President Trump, the collapse of the cases is a public embarrassment at a moment when his approval ratings have dipped amid economic concerns and midterm campaigning. White House officials sought to downplay the rulings, with one senior aide telling reporters, “These are bureaucratic speed bumps, not substantive defeats.”

Yet the judicial language — particularly Judge Fitzpatrick’s phrase “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” — is likely to echo in Democratic campaign ads next fall. As one House Democratic strategist put it: “When even federal judges are calling out misconduct this starkly, it’s hard to argue the system isn’t being weaponized.”

For now, the legal fight continues. Appeals are certain, and the Justice Department retains the option of seeking new indictments through properly appointed prosecutors where statutes of limitations permit. But the twin rulings have cast a long shadow over an agenda that once promised sweeping accountability for the president’s adversaries — and raised fresh questions about the limits of executive power in a second Trump term.