President’s strategy Donald Trump The Prosecutor’s Office’s pursuit of those it considers adversaries suffered a double and severe setback on Monday. For one thing, a federal judge dismissed the entire indictment against him James Comeyformer FBI Director. To another, another … The court rejected the indictment brought against the New York Attorney General, Letitia JamesIt concluded that the prosecutor who brought the cases was illegally appointed and acted without authority.
The two decisions are different but related Presidential pressuresIt demonstrates the extent of coordinated efforts to use the criminal machinery against the president’s critics and the extent to which this structure is beginning to break down in the courts in its early stages.
The situation leaves the administration in a fragile position. The Comey case collapsed before it reached trial. Letitia James’s case was immediately wiped out by a ruling questioning the appointment of a prosecutor who promoted both measures.
The Comey case was a personal priority for Trump. The accusation stated that the former FBI director lied to Congress and the office itself about the handling of the memos in which he recorded his meetings with Trump, and that he leaked some of that material to promote the appointment of a special prosecutor.
The judge concluded that the prosecutor who signed the accusation, Lindsey Halliganthat he lacked the legal authority to do so, that his appointment violated the Constitution and that the entire process was flawed from the beginning. In a decisive decision, he ordered the entire accusation suppressed and left the administration without its most publicized case against a high-ranking federal official.
In parallel, the court hearing the Letitia James case rejected the case for the same structural reasons. The court order describes how Halligan was placed at the helm of a critical area of the Justice Department after the acting attorney was appointed, Eric SeibertHe was removed under pressure for refusing to press charges against Comey and against James herself.
The judicial article explains that after the statutory 120 days to appoint a temporary prosecutor, the Justice Department no longer had the authority to appoint Halligan: that jurisdiction automatically transferred to district judges. The government ignored that limit and filed the charge anyway. The judge describes him as a Illegal appointment Which invalidates the entire case, from signing the accusation to presenting evidence.
Comey was one of the most controversial figures of 2016: he reopened the investigation into Hillary Clinton It closed it after eleven days, while keeping the investigation into contacts between Trump’s entourage and Moscow secret. His firing in 2017 marked the beginning of a personal confrontation with Trump. The fall of his invalid accusation of constitutional violations represents a direct political blow in the case The white house Presented as evidence that Comey acted in a partisan manner.
Political pressures
The accusation against Letitia James was based on alleged charges Mortgage fraud: He lied about occupying a home and committed loan violations. But the file itself shows that the evidence came from a blog and documents obtained in a questionable manner, and that career prosecutors concluded that there was no evidence to support the crime.
James claimed in his pre-sentencing motion Political pressuresThe dismissal of prosecutors who refused to charge her, improper access to mortgage databases and a complaint prepared with materials taken from the Internet. The judicial decision goes further: it recognizes that the person who accused her did not have legal authority and confirms the validity of the hypothesis that the operation was born from the political use of federal agencies.
But the court rejects his case Without biaswhich would theoretically allow it to be reopened, although the extent of the violations described makes it unlikely that it can be revived in its current form.
Evidence of Trump’s desire to go after his critics came in October, when he ordered the indictments of Comey, Schiff, and Letitia James in a letter to the attorney general. Pam Bondi; He believes it was a mistake, and that he tried to send the post privately, as a direct message, and it ended up being published on social media.