ALEXANDRIA, Va. – In a courtroom drama set to unfold this Thursday, attorneys for two prominent adversaries of former President Donald Trump are poised to challenge the legality of their prosecutions. They will argue before a federal judge that the prosecutor responsible for their indictments was unlawfully appointed.

The legal teams for former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James are mounting a concerted effort to have their cases dismissed. Central to their argument is the assertion that Lindsey Halligan’s installation as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was not conducted according to the law.

Thursday’s court proceedings will delve into the intricate constitutional and statutory frameworks that dictate the appointment of U.S. attorneys. These officials hold significant sway as chief federal prosecutors within the Justice Department’s regional offices nationwide.

Traditionally, U.S. attorneys are nominated by the president and must secure Senate confirmation. However, the law allows for a temporary bypass of this process, empowering attorneys general to appoint an interim U.S. attorney for a period of 120 days. The crux of the argument from Comey and James’s legal teams is that once this interim period lapses, the authority to fill the vacancy should lie solely with federal judges in that district, a step allegedly overlooked in Halligan’s appointment.

This procedural misstep, they argue, underpins their motion to dismiss the cases outright, questioning the legitimacy of the prosecutions brought against them under Halligan’s auspices.

After then-interim U.S. attorney Erik Siebert resigned in September while facing Trump administration pressure to bring charges against Comey and James, Attorney General Pam Bondi — at Trump’s public urging — installed Halligan to the role.

Siebert had been appointed by Bondi in January to serve as interim U.S. attorney. Trump in May announced his intention to nominate him and judges in the Eastern District unanimously agreed after his 120-day period expired that he should be retained in the role. But after the Trump administration effectively pushed him out in September, the Justice Department again opted to make an interim appointment in place of the courts, something defense lawyers say it was not empowered under the law to do.

Prosecutors in the cases say the law does not explicitly prevent successive appointments of interim U.S. attorneys by the Justice Department, and that even if Halligan’s appointment is deemed invalid, the proper fix is not the dismissal of the indictment.

Comey has pleaded not guilty to charges of making a false statement and obstructing Congress, and James has pleaded not guilty to mortgage fraud allegations. Their lawyers have separately argued that the prosecutions are improperly vindictive and motivated by the president’s personal animus toward their clients, and should therefore be dismissed.