Former FBI Director James Comey’s lawyers have formally asked a judge to dismiss the politically charged prosecution against him, pointing on Monday to what they called “the government’s flagrant misconduct and the need to deter the government from bringing further unconstitutional prosecutions.”
Among their top gripes is something that’s become a common theme in Donald Trump’s second term: an accusation that the Justice Department couldn’t find someone willing to break the rules and is now relying on an improperly appointed prosecutor who has no actual authority.
Comey’s legal team is taking aim at the appointment of Lindsey Halligan, once a beauty pageant contestant at Trump’s Miss USA who later became a defense lawyer in his Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. She most recently served as a legal aide in the White House — that is, until the lawyer with no experience as a prosecutor was appointed to lead one of the top offices in the country with explicit expectations to pursue cases against Trump’s perceived political enemies.
In a new legal filing that threatens to derail the case just four weeks in, Comey’s lawyers argued that Halligan has no business running the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. They noted how Halligan’s predecessor, Erik Siebert, was appointed to run that office as an “interim U.S. attorney” on the second day of the administration — a status that ended the moment the 120-day clock for that interim appointment ran out and local federal judges elected Siebert to serve as the official U.S. attorney. In light of that situation, Comey’s team argued that Halligan couldn’t possibly be appointed as yet another “interim” prosecutor to lead that basis without breaking the logic of the presidential appointment system.
Allowing Halligan to remain would be akin to letting the attorney general appoint interim U.S. attorneys all over the country without ever subjecting them to Senate approval, Comey’s team said, a move that would disregard the core constitutional principle that guarantees Senate buy-in for presidential appointees.
“When Mr. Siebert resigned on September 19, 2025, the district court again had the exclusive authority to appoint an interim U.S. Attorney. But instead of awaiting the district court’s selection, the attorney general purported to appoint Ms. Halligan,” they wrote.
“In short, the president and attorney general violated a congressionally mandated appointment procedure so that they could orchestrate the indictment of a perceived political opponent in the waning days of the limitations period. That is exactly the kind of ‘executive aggrandizement’ that the appointments clause was designed to prevent. And it is exactly the kind of ‘flagrant misbehavior’ that warrants dismissal with prejudice,” they wrote.
U.S. District Judge Michael S. Nachmanoff has already indicated that he will move the portion of this case challenging Halligan’s appointment to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which could reassign it to another judge outside what is currently Halligan’s district.
In two court filings spanning 85 pages, Comey’s defense team also described the way Trump has — in public for all to see — relentlessly pressured the Justice Department to settle a personal score he has with the man who once led the FBI during his first presidential administration and later planted the seeds that mired his term with investigations into purported Russian connections.
“The indictment in this case arises from multiple glaring constitutional violations and an egregious abuse of power by the federal government … bedrock principles of due process and equal protection have long ensured that government officials may not use courts to punish and imprison their perceived personal and political enemies. But that is exactly what happened here,” Comey’s lawyers wrote.
That weighty accusation comes from a powerhouse legal defense team whose members include Julian Assange defense lawyer Jessica Carmichael, celebrated anti-corruption prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald and Michael Dreeben, the nation’s former deputy solicitor general who oversaw the federal government’s most significant cases before the Supreme Court for 25 years.
The legal filings seeking to dismiss the indictment are chock full of ammunition — in the form of Truth Social posts from Trump himself, who at one point posted what was reportedly intended to be a direct message to Attorney General Pam Bondi expressing his impatience with her efforts to secure an indictment against Comey and Trump’s other political enemies. Trump complained to her that the DOJ had yet to file criminal charges against Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff — and he pinned it all on Siebert, who he insulted as a “a Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job.”
“Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot. We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” Trump wrote.
Comey’s lawyers make the case that Halligan is engaging in a “vindictive prosecution” that violates the law, pointing not to her personal actions but to the man who they say is calling the shots.
Defense attorneys noted that “the animus harbored by the official who prompted the prosecution — here, the president — revealed in repeated expressions of malice.” And they direct the judge to see for himself Trump’s long history of disparaging remarks on Twitter and Truth Social that call Comey “a weak and untruthful slime ball” who “should be prosecuted.”