DOJ Pushes Back on Judge’s Remedies, Labels Comey and Letitia James Case Closures as ‘Paperwork Errors

A ruling by a federal judge declared Lindsey Halligan’s interim appointment as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia illegal, seemingly jeopardizing the prosecutions of ex-FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. However, the Department of Justice contends that the impact is not as severe as it seems, arguing that the indictments requested by former President Donald Trump should remain intact.

The Trump administration submitted a detailed 47-page brief to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, reiterating support for Halligan’s appointment while acknowledging that a three-judge panel might reach a different conclusion.

Should that situation arise, the court might determine that although U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s appointment of Halligan was not legitimate, the indictments could still stand unaffected.

In November, Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie dismissed the charges against Comey and James, citing Halligan’s lack of “lawful authority.” Despite this, the DOJ argued that Currie’s decision unjustly “imposed the drastic measure of dismissing indictments that were properly issued by two grand juries.”

Halligan maintained her position for over a month but drew scrutiny from another federal judge in January due to her continued identification on court documents as U.S. attorney.

U.S. District Judge David J. Novak, a Trump appointee, said Halligan, a former Trump criminal defense lawyer, was engaged in a “charade,” in which she was “masquerading” as the U.S. attorney and “in direct defiance of binding court orders,” referring to Currie’s dismissals.

Although the DOJ said Novak was running an “inquisition,” Halligan ultimately stepped aside on Jan. 20 as judges in the Eastern District began the process for replacing her — with public advertisements for the job.

The DOJ still maintains that Bondi’s move to retroactively ratify Halligan’s dual interim U.S. attorney and special attorney titles, and her actions before the grand juries, cured any “paperwork mistake” hampering the indictments she alone signed.

“The appointment error alleged here therefore boils down to the idea that the Attorney General cited the wrong statute in authorizing Halligan to seek and obtain the indictments at issue here. Even if that paperwork mistake was legal error, it was not one that prejudiced defendants; and it has in any event been cured several times over by Attorney General orders ratifying Halligan’s actions before the grand juries and her signature on the indictments,” the government said. “The Court should reverse.”

What mattered is that Halligan was “at minimum an attorney for the government” at the time she secured the Comey and James indictments, the DOJ asserted.

“Even if the Attorney General could not appoint Halligan to the office of interim U.S. Attorney, it does not follow that Halligan was unauthorized to obtain and sign indictments on behalf of the United States. One need not be a U.S. Attorney to obtain and sign indictments—one need only be an ‘attorney for the government,’” the brief said.

In closing, the DOJ stated that Comey and James cannot show that concerns about Halligan’s appointment “prejudiced” them to the point that dismissal was warranted.

“Neither the district court nor the defendants seriously contend that the grand juries’ decisions to indict in these cases were substantially influenced by the title Halligan claimed, when it is indisputable that she could have presented the cases as a Special Attorney rather than an interim U.S. Attorney,” the brief concluded. “Nor is it fundamentally unfair to the defendants, as the court claimed, that Halligan presented the evidence to the grand juries in her capacity as interim U.S. Attorney rather than in some other capacity.”