New York AG Letitia James speaks out after federal indictment dismissed: 'I remain fearless'
NEW YORK -- A federal judge has dismissed the criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, concluding that the prosecutor who brought the charges at President Donald Trump's urging was illegally appointed by the Justice Department.
James released the following statements moments after it was announced the indictments would be dismissed:
"I am heartened by today's victory and grateful for the prayers and support I have received from around the country," she said in a statement. "I remain fearless in the face of these baseless charges as I continue fighting for New Yorkers every single day."
The rulings from U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie amount to a stunning rebuke of the Trump administration's efforts to target Trump's political opponents. It also highlights its legal maneuvering to hastily install a loyalist prosecutor willing to file the cases.
The orders make Lindsey Halligan the latest Trump administration prosecutor to be disqualified because of the manner in which they were appointed. Both defendants had asked for the cases to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning that the Justice Department would not be able to bring them again. But the judge instead dismissed them without prejudice, though it was not immediately clear if or how the Justice Department might attempt to revive the prosecutions.
Monday's order deals exclusively with the mechanism the Trump administration employed to appoint Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience, to lead one of the Justice Department's most elite and important offices.
Halligan was named to the job in September after a different interim U.S. attorney, Erik Siebert, was effectively forced out amid pressure from the Trump administration to file charges against Comey and James.
James has been a frequent target of Trump's ire, especially since she won a staggering judgment against him and the Trump Organization in a lawsuit alleging he defrauded banks by overstating the value of his real estate holdings on financial statements.
An appeals court overturned the fine, which had ballooned to more than $500 million with interest, but upheld a lower court's finding that Trump had committed fraud.
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