Federal judge calls justice department’s actions ‘unlawful exercises of executive power’ because prosecutor was unlawfully appointed – key US politics stories from Monday 24 November at a glance
A federal judge threw out the criminal cases against James Comey and Letitia James on Monday, concluding that the prosecutor handling the case was unlawfully appointed.
Lindsey Halligan, who Trump named the interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia in September, had “no lawful authority to present the indictment” against the former FBI director and New York attorney general, Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, wrote in her opinion.
She added that “all actions flowing from Ms Halligan’s defective appointment” were “unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside”.
The decision is a major win for Comey, who was charged with lying to Congress five years ago, and James, who was charged with mortgage fraud. Both unequivocally denied wrongdoing and said the cases were a thinly veiled effort by the Trump administration to punish them for opposing the president.
