The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) cases against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey have fallen apart.
The cases were dismissed by a judge due to the unlawful appointment of a U.S. Attorney.
Now, rather than appeal that decision, since the cases were dismissed without prejudice, Attorney General Pam Bondi is reportedly going to file new charges.
When the two cases were thrown out by Judge Cameran McGowan Currie, they were not tossed on their merits, but rather on a technicality.
You can only appoint one interim U.S. attorney over 120 days, but Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan was appointed before that window had expired on her predecessor, Erik Seibert.
Judge Currie stated, "Because Ms. Halligan had no lawful authority to present the indictment, I will grant Mr. Comey's motion and dismiss the indictment without prejudice.”
In the James case, I think the judge did the DOJ a favor, and though I still believe the Comey case has some teeth, there is also a technicality there that could hurt Bondi.
The case against James was always marginal simply because of the dollar value that was reportedly at issue in the case. Then, it was later reported that if she did benefit financially from alleged fraud, it was to the tune of less than $1,000, hardly the number that was previously being thrown around in the media.
The entire case rested on the idea that James had falsified documents to present a mortgaged home as her secondary residence when she actually allowed her niece to live there.
As this all played out, it appeared that while that was the claim in the initial mortgage documents, James appears to have later updated the paperwork to show that her niece would indeed be the primary resident at the home.
Trump was furious when Seibert refused to press charges, then he was relieved from his duties, and Halligan, a former real-estate attorney with no experience as a prosecutor, was hired to replace him. The more I have learned about this case, the more it appears we were being fed false or misrepresented facts regarding the case. I have run this by my attorney friends, and they laughed at the idea that anyone would be able to secure a conviction. The Comey case, however, still has some merit, but there is a critical caveat.
If Bondi were to appeal the case's dismissal, she would lose, and she knows it, as the rule in question is pretty cut and dry.
Politico, however, is now reporting that its sources believe that Bondi will present an entirely new indictment against both James and Comey.
There is one other problem, however, and that is that the statute of limitations has reportedly run out on Comey’s alleged conduct, so any refiling of charges would result in another dismissal. They still have time on the James case, but again, from what I have read and what my legal sources tell me, that case is hanging by a thread and just not worth pursuing.
My guess is that heads are going to roll on this because Trump really wanted to see Comey and James in orange jumpsuits. One of the reasons that is not happening is because of sloppy work by the DOJ, but I don’t fault Bondi for all of that. Trump was clearly pressuring Bondi to remove a U.S. Attorney who did not believe there was enough evidence in either case to secure a conviction. And now it has left a major stain on Bondi’s record. I just don’t see this ending well for her.
