Bondi Seeks to Revive Criminal Indictments of Comey, James

US Attorney General Pam Bondi asked an appeals court to resurrect the scuttled indictments of two of President Donald Trump’s perceived enemies, former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Bondi, joined by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, said in a 56-page court filing Monday that a lower court erred in November when it disqualified the prosecutor who handled the indictments and tossed them out.

Pam Bondi

Photographer: Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg

The prosecutor was Lindsey Halligan, one of Trump’s former personal attorneys, who he brought in to serve as interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after his first pick for the office declined to bring charges against Comey and James, citing a lack of evidence.

Halligan quickly secured indictments against the two, accusing Comey of lying to Congress and James of committing mortgage fraud — charges they each denied.

Read More: Virginia US Attorney Halligan to Leave Post, Bondi Says

US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie threw out the indictments, ruling that Halligan’s appointment was unlawful because she was the second lawyer in a row to hold the office on an interim basis. Federal law allows presidents to appoint US attorneys for 120 days on an interim basis before they are approved by the US Senate.

In her filing, Bondi accused the judge of infringing on the president’s power to appoint US attorneys. The judge’s ruling, “mistakenly aggrandizes the district court’s appointment authority at the expense of the Executive Branch’s, which is where the Constitution assigns authority to prosecute crime,” the attorney general argued.

Bondi said that even if there was a “paperwork mistake” in the appointment of Halligan, it hasn’t “prejudiced” the rights of Comey and James and has since been “cured several times over” by the attorney general signing onto the indictments.

Bondi is asking the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the lower court orders.

The case is United States v. Comey, 25-4674, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Robert Burnson in San Francisco at rburnson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Ben Bain at bbain2@bloomberg.net

Peter Blumberg

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