wrote<\/a>. \u201cNo, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many lawyers, and legal pundits, say so.\u201d<\/p>\nThe president also addressed Attorney General Pam Bondi in the message, saying that the Department of Justice needed to move forward with charges against James, Comey and a US senator, Adam Schiff of California.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about Comey, Adam \u2018Shifty\u2019 Schiff, Leticia??? They\u2019re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n
He urged Bondi to act immediately to secure indictments, signalling that Halligan would help.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t delay any longer, it\u2019s killing our reputation and credibility,\u201d Trump said. \u201cJUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!\u201d<\/p>\n
Before her appointment, Halligan had no prosecutorial experience, and her background was largely in insurance law. Previously, she served as a personal lawyer to Trump.<\/p>\n
Within days of taking up her role as US attorney, Halligan had secured an indictment against Comey for allegedly lying to Congress and obstructing a Senate proceeding.<\/p>\n
Then, on October 6, Halligan unveiled a second indictment against James, accusing her of mortgage fraud.<\/p>\n
A third indictment arrived on October 16, this time against Trump\u2019s former national security adviser, John Bolton.<\/p>\n
All three have denied wrongdoing and claimed the charges were acts of political retribution. Comey, James and Bolton have all criticised Trump publicly, and James even successfully pursued a civil fraud case against Trump in New York state.<\/p>\n
Comey, James seek dismissal<\/h2>\n
Lawyers for the defendants have explored multiple channels to have the cases dismissed before trial.<\/p>\n
On November 13, Judge Currie heard opening arguments in one petition brought by James and Comey.<\/p>\n
They asserted that Halligan\u2019s appointment as US attorney was invalid, since she did not have judicial approval.<\/p>\n
Normally, interim US attorneys may only stay in the position for a span of 120 days. After that period, federal judges in the district may decide who fills the role.<\/p>\n
Siebert had served for a 120-day period and had gotten judicial permission to continue as acting US attorney, until the Senate could confirm a permanent occupant for the role.<\/p>\n
But Halligan did not have the judges\u2019 approval. That made her appointment as US attorney illegal, according to lawyers for Comey and James.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the Justice Department, however, argued that the issue amounted to a mere \u201cpaperwork error\u201d \u2014 and that Attorney General Bondi had likewise signed off on the indictments.<\/p>\n
Still, the hearings in Currie\u2019s courtroom raised serious questions about the validity of the indictments.<\/p>\n
Currie raised concerns that the grand jury transcript in Comey\u2019s case was incomplete, an issue later echoed by Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick in a separate ruling on November 17.<\/p>\n
He said the records indicate \u201ca disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps\u201d, including misleading statements from the prosecutor and the use of an unrelated search warrant. He also pointed out that it seemed the final indictment against Comey had never been fully presented to the grand jury, as required.<\/p>\n
In another courtroom last week, overseen by Judge Michael Nachmanoff, the Justice Department acknowledged that it had indeed failed to give the grand jury a chance to review the final Comey indictment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A United States federal judge has thrown out the criminal charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James and James Comey, the former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). On Monday, District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie determined that the prosecutor overseeing the two cases, Lindsey Halligan, had been illegally appointed, which in turn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}