Newly free from criminal indictment by the Trump administration that he said was “based on malevolence and incompetence,” former FBI director James Comey celebrated his victory on Monday with tempered expectations for the future.
“I know that Donald Trump will probably come after me again, and my attitude’s gonna be the same: I am innocent, I am not afraid and I believe in an independent federal judiciary, the gift from our Founders that protects us from a would-be tyrant,” Comey said in a video shared to Instagram.
As HuffPost reported, a federal judge dismissed the two-count indictment against Comey — as well as a separate indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James — after finding that Lindsey Halligan, the prosecutor President Donald Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi tapped to lead the cases, was unlawfully appointed as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The indictments were dismissed without prejudice, which means that charges can be refiled. But that would take some fancy footwork on behalf of the Justice Department: When it comes to Comey, the statute of limitations for the alleged offenses has run out.
The former FBI director was charged in September — just days after Trump publicly called on Bondi to indict him — with one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice. The Justice Department alleged that Comey lied to congressional investigators in 2020 about whether he authorized someone at the FBI to be an anonymous source to reporters about law enforcement probes of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Comey said he never authorized leaks in 2020. When he pleaded not guilty last month, his answer was the same.
“This case mattered to me personally, obviously, but it matters most because a message has to be sent that the president of the United States cannot use the Department of Justice to target his political enemies. I don’t care what your politics are, you have to see that as fundamentally un-American and a threat to the rule of law that keeps all of us free,” Comey said Monday.
What has happened at the Justice Department since Trump became president again is “heartbreaking,” he added.
In her order explaining the dismissal, U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie, a Bill Clinton appointee, highlighted that Halligan convened a grand jury long after her 120-day legally allowable period to serve as an interim U.S. attorney had passed. Beyond that point, interim attorneys require Senate confirmation or appointment by a judge in the district they are expected to cover.
When Halligan’s predecessor in Virginia, Erik Siebert, resigned amid a reported pressure campaign on him by the administration to bring charges against Comey and James where evidence did not exist, Bondi made a sloppy attempt to “install” Halligan, Currie noted.
Indeed, Halligan’s appointment — and the prosecution — was plagued with problems. She was appointed just days before the statute of limitations ran out on Comey’s case and then rushed to seat a grand jury by herself since no other prosecutors would stand alongside her. A court hearing only days ago revealed that Halligan never even showed a grand jury the final version of the indictment so they could vote on it; she only showed it to a grand jury foreperson and one other grand juror.
Like Comey, the New York attorney general was also celebrating on Monday.
“I remain fearless in the face of these baseless charges as I continue fighting for New Yorkers every single day,” James, who had been accused of mortgage fraud, said in a post on X.
This story has been updated to clarify who saw the final version of Halligan’s indictment.