By Holmes Lybrand, Devan Cole, Kara Scannell

(CNN) — A federal judge dismissed the indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James on Monday.

The judge found that President Donald Trump’s appointment of interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan in Alexandria, Virginia, was invalid.

Trump handpicked Halligan for the role amid increasing pressure to bring criminal cases against his political enemies, including Comey and James.

“The Attorney General’s attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid,” Judge Cameron McGowan Currie wrote in her Monday order.

According to Currie, “all actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment” including the indictments against Comey and James “were unlawful exercises of executive power and are hereby set aside.”

The judge tossed out the cases “without prejudice,” leaving open the possibility that the cases against Comey and James can be brought again alleging the same conduct. But McGowan Currie appeared to acknowledge in her ruling that for Comey, such a move may not be possible since the statute of limitations for his charges has now passed.

CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.

James issued a statement after the charges against her were dropped.

“I am heartened by today’s victory and grateful for the prayers and support I have received from around the country,” she said. “I remain fearless in the face of these baseless charges as I continue fighting for New Yorkers every single day.”

Why Halligan was unlawfully appointed

Halligan, a former White House adviser, was selected for the role after the Trump administration pushed out the previous interim US attorney amid increasing pressure to bring cases against Comey and James.

After determining Halligan’s appointment was invalid, the judge pointed to Trump’s classified documents case in explaining why dismissing the indictments was the proper remedy.

In that case, Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the charges against Trump after finding Special Counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed, in part because he too was not Senate confirmed. Trump had pleaded not guilty to taking classified documents from the White House and resisting the government’s attempts to retrieve the materials.

In the cases against Comey — which Halligan brought before a grand jury just days after her appointment — and James, defense attorneys argued the 120-day period that an interim US attorney is allowed to serve prior to confirmation from the Senate or approval from the district’s judges had already expired when Halligan took the position. This, they said, meant that Halligan’s appointment was unlawful.

Currie agreed, writing that agreeing with the government’s position would give Trump and other officials authority “to evade the Senate confirmation process indefinitely by stacking successive 120-day appointments.”

“The 120-day clock began running with Mr. Siebert’s appointment on January 21, 2025,” she wrote, referring to Erik Siebert who had been serving as the interim US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia until he was pushed out in September.

“When that clock expired on May 21, 2025, so too did the Attorney General’s appointment authority,” Currie wrote, adding that Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “attempt to install” Halligan “was invalid and that Ms. Halligan has been unlawfully serving in that role since September 22, 2025.”

Currie wrote the unlawful appointment should “invalidate” Halligan’s actions — including presenting those two indictments to grand juries.

Prosecutors who work under Halligan previously argued Bondi has full authority to appoint whomever she wants to the position if they are qualified, and that the 120-day period serves as a sort of check-in system for those interim US Attorneys appointed.

“The implications of a contrary conclusion are extraordinary,” Currie wrote of the Halligan appointment. “It would mean the Government could send any private citizen off the street — attorney or not — into the grand jury room to secure an indictment so long as the Attorney General gives her approval after the fact. That cannot be the law.”

The cases against Comey and James

Prosecutors say Comey passed information along to reporters in 2017 through his attorney at the time and later made false statements during congressional testimony when asked about leaking information.

He was charged in September with lying to and obstructing Congress during testimony in late 2020 and pleaded not guilty.

Separately, James was indicted in October on one count of making false statements to a financial institution and one count of bank fraud, with prosecutors alleging she falsely claimed a property as a second home in order to receive a better interest rate. She also pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Attorneys for Comey and James have both separately argued their cases were brought at the behest of the Trump administration because of the president’s personal animus toward them.

Comey has been a constant critic of Trump and was fired by the president during the first months of his first term following the director’s handling of the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

James, too, has been a long-time critic of Trump and filed a civil lawsuit against Trump over alleged value inflation of Trump properties. While a state judge found Trump liable and ordered him to pay over $350 million in the case, a New York appeals court tossed the judgement, finding it “excessive.”

Trump: ‘They’re all guilty as hell’

As they fight the charges, Comey and James have pointed to a myriad of comments Trump has made calling for both individuals to be prosecuted and, in the case of James, have accused the government of “transforming the Department of Justice into the President’s personal agents of revenge.”

Their attorneys pointed to one of Trump’s Truth Social posts, which was directed at Bondi, from September.

“Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,’” Trump wrote in September, referring to Comey, James, and Sen. Adam Schiff of California.

The Justice Department argued, however, that the president’s social media posts weren’t directing Bondi to act, but simply saying he believed those people should be prosecuted because they’re guilty.

What is Judge Cameron McGowan Currie’s role?

Currie, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, ordinarily sits in South Carolina. She was appointed to the Halligan matter because other judges in the Eastern District of Virginia play a role in ensuring there is a top prosecutor in their district.

When the chief judge of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals tapped Currie to handle the challenges to Halligan, he said the move was being taken “in the interest of maintaining public confidence in the impartial administration of justice.”

In May, the federal judges in the Eastern District of Virginia voted unanimously to keep Halligan’s predecessor, Siebert, whose 120-day stint as interim US Attorney was coming to a close, in the job.

Among the judges who made the decision are US District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, who was later assigned Comey’s case, and Jamar Walker, who was later assigned to oversee James’ case.

Currie, who first started presiding over cases in The Palmetto State in 1994, stopped serving as a full-time judge in 2013.

This story was updated with additional reporting.

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