'Cured several times over': DOJ refuses to take judge's 'strong medicine' and attacks 'paperwork mistake' endings of Comey, Letitia James prosecutions

When a national justice ruled that Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed arsenic interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, it appeared to beryllium fatal to the prosecutions of erstwhile FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The DOJ present counters that was lone a soma coiled and that the indictments President Donald Trump called for should past regardless.

The Trump administration's 47-page brief astatine the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals backed Halligan's assignment 1 much time, but near unfastened the anticipation that a three-judge sheet volition marque an alternate ruling.

In that scenario, the tribunal could affirm that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi did not validly name Halligan but that the indictments were "nonetheless valid."

Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie dismissed Comey's mendacious connection lawsuit and James' slope fraud prosecution successful November, penning that Halligan acted without "lawful authority." According to the DOJ, however, Currie's ruling wrongly "impos[ed] the beardown medicine of dismissing indictments duly returned by 2 expansive juries."

Halligan held connected to her relation for implicit a period but yet caught different national judge's attraction successful January for continuing to place herself connected tribunal documents arsenic U.S. attorney.

U.S. District Judge David J. Novak, a Trump appointee, said Halligan, a erstwhile Trump transgression defence lawyer, was engaged successful a "charade," successful which she was "masquerading" arsenic the U.S. lawyer and "in nonstop defiance of binding tribunal orders," referring to Currie's dismissals.

Although the DOJ said Novak was moving an "inquisition," Halligan yet stepped speech connected Jan. 20 arsenic judges successful the Eastern District began the process for replacing her — with nationalist advertisements for the job.

The DOJ inactive maintains that Bondi's determination to retroactively ratify Halligan's dual interim U.S. lawyer and peculiar lawyer titles, and her actions earlier the expansive juries, cured immoderate "paperwork mistake" hampering the indictments she unsocial signed.

"The assignment mistake alleged present truthful boils down to the thought that the Attorney General cited the incorrect statute successful authorizing Halligan to question and get the indictments astatine contented here. Even if that paperwork mistake was ineligible error, it was not 1 that prejudiced defendants; and it has successful immoderate lawsuit been cured respective times implicit by Attorney General orders ratifying Halligan's actions earlier the expansive juries and her signature connected the indictments," the authorities said. "The Court should reverse."

What mattered is that Halligan was "at minimum an lawyer for the government" astatine the clip she secured the Comey and James indictments, the DOJ asserted.

"Even if the Attorney General could not name Halligan to the bureau of interim U.S. Attorney, it does not travel that Halligan was unauthorized to get and motion indictments connected behalf of the United States. One request not beryllium a U.S. Attorney to get and motion indictments—one request lone beryllium an 'attorney for the government,'" the little said.

In closing, the DOJ stated that Comey and James cannot amusement that concerns astir Halligan's assignment "prejudiced" them to the constituent that dismissal was warranted.

"Neither the territory tribunal nor the defendants earnestly contend that the expansive juries' decisions to indict successful these cases were substantially influenced by the rubric Halligan claimed, erstwhile it is indisputable that she could person presented the cases arsenic a Special Attorney alternatively than an interim U.S. Attorney," the little concluded. "Nor is it fundamentally unfair to the defendants, arsenic the tribunal claimed, that Halligan presented the grounds to the expansive juries successful her capableness arsenic interim U.S. Attorney alternatively than successful immoderate different capacity."