Judge clears Comey, James

A federal judge on Monday dismissed the criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, concluding that the prosecutor who brought the charges at President Donald Trump’s urging was illegally appointed by the Justice Department.

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The rulings from US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie halt at least for now a pair of prosecutions that had targeted two of the president's most high-profile political opponents and amount to a sharp rebuke of the Trump administration's legal maneuvering to install an inexperienced and loyalist prosecutor willing to file the cases.

The orders do not concern the substance of the allegations against Comey or James but instead deal with the unconventional manner in which the prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, was named to her position as interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Defense lawyers said the Trump administration had no legal authority to make the appointment. In a pair of similar rulings, Currie agreed and said the invalid appointment required the dismissal of the cases.