IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA
ALEXANDRIA DIVISION
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
V.
JAMES B. COMEY, JR.,
Defendant.
Criminal No. 1:25-cr-00272-MSN
OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO DISMISS INDICTMENT ECF NO. 60)
On September 25, 2025, Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience, appeared before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia.
Having been appointed Interim U.S. Attorney by the Attorney General just days before, Ms.
Halligan secured a two-count indictment charging former FBI Director James B. Comey, Jr. with
making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding.
Mr. Comey now moves to dismiss the indictment on the ground that Ms. Halligan, the sole
prosecutor who presented the case to the grand jury, was unlawfully appointed in violation of 28
U.S.C. § 546 and the Constitution's Appointments Clause. As explained below, I agree with Mr.
Comey that the Attorney General's attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid. And because Ms. Halligan had no lawful authority to
present the indictment, I will grant Mr. Comey's motion and dismiss the indictment without
prejudice.
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA
NORFOLK DIVISION
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
V.
LETITIA A. JAMES,
Criminal No. 2:25-cr-00122-JK W
Defendant.
OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING MOTION TO DISMISS INDICTMENT (ECE NO. 22)
On October 9, 2025, Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience, appeared before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia.
Having been appointed Interim U.S. Attorney by the Attorney General just two weeks before, Ms.
Halligan secured a two-count indictment charging New York Attorney General Letitia James with
bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution.
Ms. James now moves to dismiss the indictment on the ground that Ms. Halligan, the sole
prosecutor who presented the case to the grand jury, was unlawfully appointed in violation of 28 U.S.C. § 546 and the Constitution's Appointments Clause. As explained below, I agree with Ms.
James that the Attorney General's attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney for the
Eastern District of Virginia was invalid. And because Ms. Halligan had no lawful authority to
present the indictment, I will grant Ms. James's motion and dismiss the indictment without
prejudice.
BREAKING: Judge rules Lindsey Halligan's appointment was not valid, thus, she had no authority to present the James Comey or Letitia James indictments and the indictments are dismissed without prejudice.
24.11.2025 17:47
👍 2676
🔁 609
💬 41
📌 101
New NY State law on "AI Companions"
👀
www.governor.ny.gov/news/governo...
11.11.2025 22:51
👍 50
🔁 16
💬 1
📌 8
reposting now that I’ve found @leahegose.bsky.social!!
06.11.2025 21:26
👍 12
🔁 11
💬 0
📌 0
Gutting.
06.11.2025 21:22
👍 1
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 0
48 hours of homelessness in CT: The faces and stories of a growing crisis
With affordable housing hard to find in Connecticut, the number of people who are homeless — young and old, in cities and towns — is rising fast.
Highly, highly recommend this project from a team of us at @ctinsider.bsky.social, led by the incomparable @jrabethomas.bsky.social.
Over two days, reporters fanned across CT to tell the story of homelessness here.
I promise you will learn something.
www.ctinsider.com/projects/new...
06.11.2025 17:06
👍 4
🔁 7
💬 1
📌 0
Always very cool for United Health-managed Medicaid to provide inaccurate information as to what's in network and not.
24.10.2025 22:02
👍 1
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 0
⚡ News: New York WILL require new buildings to be all-electric starting next year.
- A federal court on Wednesday dismissed a challenge to the All-Electric Buildings Act
- Today the state Building Code Council voted to finalize a new code incorporating the policy
25.07.2025 17:39
👍 169
🔁 46
💬 6
📌 8
It’s an uphill struggle getting people to accept that Christians can be bad people.
But the even harder truth that people urgently need to grasp in this time of Christofascism is that for some understandings of Christianity, to be a GOOD Christian is to be a BAD person.
Denial makes things worse
18.06.2025 18:00
👍 1340
🔁 377
💬 43
📌 49
The pace of undermining the statutory authority of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to serve as the cornerstone of nuclear safety in the United States and across the world is accelerating.
#energysky 🔌💡
See Full Story: ow.ly/6Pvp50Wt0Ui
Writer: Stakeholder
22.07.2025 13:00
👍 0
🔁 1
💬 0
📌 0
Sorry, to clarify, the order does not name a specific transmission line but blocks funding for *future* OSW transmission needed to meet climate law targets. There were 28 proposals from four developers in the running.
If I understand correctly, the Propel NY project is still moving ahead
17.07.2025 18:05
👍 2
🔁 2
💬 0
📌 1
The Media's Pivot to AI Is Not Real and Not Going to Work
AI is not going to save media companies, and forcing journalists to use AI is not a business model.
Media outlets can't pivot to AI to save themselves. It's not a business strategy and it's not going to work. The only path forward is for journalists to lean into their humanity, to do things AI can't, and to make clear they are writing for people, not algorithms:
www.404media.co/the-medias-p...
14.07.2025 14:17
👍 1984
🔁 566
💬 32
📌 62
ok
14.07.2025 14:51
👍 126
🔁 13
💬 5
📌 1
Is this something parents want?
08.07.2025 17:34
👍 1
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 0
We are about to witness levels of media illiteracy that the human mind cannot even fathom.
08.07.2025 00:17
👍 6287
🔁 1489
💬 169
📌 146
I have just learned that in the 20 years from 2004-2023 West Haven and East Haven have each permitted less than 500 homes... that is less than 25 permits per year!
Meanwhile New Haven permitted 5,700 homes. Talk about an imbalance of epic proportions
07.07.2025 23:55
👍 37
🔁 9
💬 3
📌 0
Excited to see when you start hiring. I'm too young to have worked in a newsroom that had any of this. Always a skeleton crew of reporters.
04.07.2025 11:31
👍 1
🔁 0
💬 1
📌 0
The Secret Origins of the Tea Party
How Big Oil and Big Tobacco partnered with the Koch brothers to take over the GOP
I think people really forget that the Tea Party started as an astroturf campaign
27.06.2025 16:35
👍 856
🔁 252
💬 21
📌 25
Seen at a Penn Station gift shop @thewaroncars.bsky.social
27.06.2025 15:26
👍 2
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 1
Yeah. It's really not in the vast majority of vaccines at all.
26.06.2025 16:42
👍 1
🔁 0
💬 1
📌 0
Looks like climate.gov is officially dead, for now. 💔
26.06.2025 15:45
👍 95
🔁 47
💬 4
📌 2
Perfect encapsulation of the Democratic Party
17.06.2025 15:13
👍 549
🔁 195
💬 9
📌 28
Beast mode
S.I. Rosenbaum on conscience, animals, and the right to be; we invite you to vote in Hydranym No. 2
It's official: I'm a Flaming Hydra. Here's my first piece, about kids who identify as cats and why they're awesome, and what Texas is really targeting with its anti-therian bill
flaminghydra.com/r/e08d4fd3?m...
06.06.2025 09:20
👍 59
🔁 12
💬 1
📌 2
This is really interesting.
06.06.2025 19:04
👍 0
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 0
“Roosevelt understood that the clearest way for a politician to show that they will fight for those values, that they will fight for those ideals, that they will fight for people like you who share them, is to show who they're fighting against and how they're fighting them.”
06.06.2025 15:35
👍 219
🔁 43
💬 5
📌 1
Coal miners backed Trump. He's dismantled their safety net
YouTube video by CNN
I hadn't connected the dots that eliminating NIOSH also eliminated coal mine safety.
Being a West Virginian now, knowing a bunch of coal miners, and living in an old coal camp, this is hard to watch.
#energysky
www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3rL...
06.06.2025 16:25
👍 10
🔁 6
💬 0
📌 1
Magnifying glasses and microscopes pre-date lasers.
06.06.2025 16:48
👍 1
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 0