🚨 NEW: Fox’s @brithume on judge throwing out Comey and James indictments: “I think the White House is right in calling this a technicality. The judge didn’t rule on the merits in any way and did not say they are legally deficient.”
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) November 25, 2025
“What they said was the wrong person brought… pic.twitter.com/KP9xjqrzg5
NEW: Fox’s @brithume on judge throwing out Comey and James indictments: “I think the White House is right in calling this a technicality. The judge didn’t rule on the merits in any way and did not say they are legally deficient.”It’s an issue of jurisdiction. Literally, the authority to enforce criminal laws. Halligan didn’t have it. That’s not a “technicality.” That’s the difference between law, and lawlessness. That’s the difference between before Magna Carta, and after.
“What they said was the wrong person brought them, someone who should not have been in the position to do that. That seems to me to be something that can be corrected and it’s possible, even likely, that these charges will be reinstated.”
“That doesn’t mean that they will prevail in the end.. but so far what we have is the dismissal for now on what really is a bit of a technicality.”
Hume is right that the error can be corrected. That’s why the charges were dismissed “without prejudice.” But who brings the charges now? The appointee of the EDVA judges? A appointee approved by the Senate?
There’s a reason Siebert quit and started this mess.
First; Trump won’t admit Halligan is out. Nobody new is coming until he accepts the ruling on that point. But if DOJ accepts the ruling, Comey walks. I heard this morning the Comey order explicitly held that, since the indictment was a nullity, the statute of limitations had run. So the only way they keep the Comey indictment alive is to appeal.
Bondi says DOJ is going to appeal. That could freeze things for a year. Say the appeals court reverses. Comey and James could appeal to the Supremes. It might be three months or more before they accept, or deny, cert.
Either way, the case returns to trial court to hash out the remaining problems with the indictments, including the absolute cockup of the Comey indictment. If Halligan had authority to seek it, she really screwed up the process, probably fatally.
If DOJ loses their appeals, sometime in 2027 they’ll have to reindict James. The applicable statute of limitations may apply by that time. But the first problem will be finding an AUSA to prosecute the case. The courts will replace Halligan after all appeals are exhausted, at least until a new appointment can be made. But that raises another issue.
EDVA is going to be in limbo until an AUSA is appointed there. Any appeal freezes that process. So for the rest of 2025, and foreseeably all of 2026, there’s no AUSA there. I’m pretty sure that’s not the way DOJ functions, and it’s also why there are statutes allowing interim appointments, and even using court appointments for interims as a backstop.
Trump’s ignorance and incompetence are ruining everything Trump is trying to accomplish. And it’s not doing the rest of us much good, either.
I’ll just add this bit of childish petulance as an example of how NOT to win friends and (positively) influence people;
With the case tossed, Attorney General Pam Bondi insisted she will appeal and is keeping Halligan on the case despite the judge's ruling, with MS NOW’s Ken Dilanian reporting, “Some people inside the DOJ looked at that as kind of a middle finger to the judge. They're putting Lindsey Halligan's name back on the document as the U.S. attorney.”If, and until, there is a stay, the court order stands as written, and is the only authority in the case.
That led MS NOW legal analyst Lisa Rubin to interject, “In the meantime, as Ken noted, we have evidence that Lindsey Halligan is insisting on continuing to call herself the United States attorney, not a special attorney, as Pam Bondi has designated her, and not any other sort of interim title that would allow her to maintain control of the office, but defiantly continuing to call herself the united states attorney, even in court filings."
“That is the directive to career prosecutors in that office, well before the appeal is filed, well before any stay has been applied for from the federal court of appeals,“ she added.
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