By Andrew Goudsward
RICHMOND, Virginia, Sept 15 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday will consider the Justice Department’s bid to revive criminal cases against two of President Donald Trump’s longtime adversaries, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The Justice Department is set to urge the court to reverse a judge’s order tossing out both cases last year on the grounds that the prosecutor who brought them, Trump ally Lindsey Halligan, was not lawfully appointed.
The prosecutions of Comey and James were among the most high-profile instances of the Trump administration using federal law enforcement to target perceived political enemies and generated upheaval inside the Justice Department.
But the arguments on Tuesday at the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are likely to focus on the narrower issue of whether former Attorney General Pam Bondi had the authority to appoint Halligan as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to prosecute the cases.
U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie concluded in November 2025 that Halligan’s appointment to a 120-day interim stint violated a federal law governing how U.S. Attorney vacancies can be filled. The judge determined that both cases had to be tossed because Halligan, a former personal lawyer to Trump with no prior prosecutorial experience, secured both indictments by herself.
Comey has since been charged in a separate federal case accusing him of threatening Trump in a social media post showing seashells on a beach arranged to form the numbers “86-47.” That case is continuing.
LEGAL ARGUMENTS OVER APPOINTMENT AUTHORITY
Justice Department lawyers have urged the appeals court to reject Currie’s interpretation of the law, arguing it would wrongly limit the attorney general’s ability to name interim U.S. Attorneys to lead 94 federal prosecutors’ offices across the U.S.
Lawyers for Comey and James argued that the DOJ’s position would effectively allow the president to keep loyalist interim U.S. Attorneys in place indefinitely, evading the Senate’s authority to approve those officials.
The prosecutions of James and Comey were brought after Trump mentioned both by name in a September 2025 social media post demanding that Bondi, who was then attorney general, take action against his adversaries.
TRUMP’S HISTORY WITH COMEY AND JAMES
Trump fired Comey as FBI director during his first term as Comey was overseeing an investigation into potential ties between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. James successfully sued Trump and his family business for fraud following his first term.
The indictment against Comey accused him of lying to Congress about authorizing leaks to the news media. James was charged with bank fraud for allegedly misrepresenting her use of a Virginia home.
Both denied wrongdoing and alleged they were targeted with vindictive prosecutions as part of a Trump retribution campaign.
Courts had not yet resolved those arguments at the time both cases were dismissed based on Halligan’s appointment.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward in Richmond, Virginia; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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