What we covered
• The bids for dismissal: Lawyers for former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James asked a judge Thursday to disqualify the interim US attorney who brought the criminal cases against them.
• Their arguments: Their lawyers argued that Lindsey Halligan, who was handpicked by President Donald Trump to oversee the Eastern District of Virginia, was appointed after a previous US attorney in the district had used up the temporary 120-day period allowed before Halligan was appointed in September. James’ lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said Halligan was “pretending” when she brought the indictment.
• Trump administration pushes back: The Justice Department argued that even if Halligan is improperly serving in the role, the indictments should not be thrown out because they don’t hinge on her holding the office. One lawyer called the issue a “paperwork error.” The judge said she’d rule by Thanksgiving.
Our live coverage of the hearing over Lindsey Halligan’s authority has ended. Read more here or scroll through the posts below to catch up on the hearing.
What to know about the judge's key questions in the Halligan hearing
Attorneys for former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James battled the Justice Department in court Thursday over whether President Donald Trump lawfully appointed a prosecutor to go after his political enemies.
Here’s what to know:
The limit does not exist: At the heart of Thursday’s dispute is whether the 120-day limit imposed for interim US attorneys is truly a limit or a guidance for when the attorney general needs to reassess their selection. A DOJ lawyer argued that Comey and James were trying to “elevate what is at best a paperwork error.”
Judge’s question elicits gasps: Judge Cameron McGowan Currie pressed Whitaker on whether the government believed the classified documents case in Florida against Donald Trump was incorrectly dismissed. DOJ attorney Henry Whitaker walked a legal tightrope by arguing that Smith would not have even met the qualifications for a US attorney and enjoyed “unique and broad” powers as a special counsel.
Missing time: Currie also laid into Whitaker during the hearing on whether Attorney General Pam Bondi had reviewed the grand jury transcript in James Comey’s case, noting there was no record of anything that happened after 4:28pm ET that day. Comey wasn’t indicted for nearly two hours after that, according to available court transcripts.
What's in a name, anyway?
There was no doubt the coming big court decision in the James Comey and Letitia James is focused on Lindsey Halligan.
But what to call her?
In the lengthy hearing Thursday, and in prior court orders from Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, Halligan has been referred to with a host of names.
That answer has been all over the place, including on Thursday.
“The indictment signer,” Currie previously called her, as the judge demanded to review grand jury transcripts. On Thursday, in court, the judge referred to her by name: “All the evidence in my review is that Ms. Halligan acted alone in both these cases” when she secured the indictments.
James’ defense attorney Abbe Lowell at one point during the arguments referred to Halligan as “the person sitting to my right,” noting Halligan once said she would do what the president wants in the US attorney’s office job.
The Justice Department, however, calls her the US attorney – hoping that an “interim” appointment she has, without being Senate-confirmed, won’t trip up the cases.
In the courtroom, however, she’s just “Lindsey Halligan,” when the prosecutors introduce their team to the judge each hearing.
And there Halligan sat, at the counsel’s table again on Thursday, never flinching as the questions and answers about her landed. She didn’t speak at all.
Gasps in court as judge asks DOJ: "Do you believe US v Trump was wrongly decided?"
Judge Cameron McGowan Currie at one point pressed a Justice Department attorney defending Lindsey Halligan’s authority on whether the government believes a Florida judge’s decision to dismiss the classified documents case brought against Donald Trump was incorrect.
The question near the end of the hearing drew gasps from the audience in the courtroom.
In that case, Judge Aileen Cannon found that then-special counsel Jack Smith was wrongly appointed in part because the Senate had not confirmed him to the role.
Justice Department lawyer Henry Whitaker responded, “I think it’s certainly not controlling here,” then pointed out the special counsel had authority that was somewhat different than a typical US Attorney, “unique and broad.”
Whitaker also said “you wouldn’t have appointed Jack Smith” as a US attorney because he doesn’t meet the qualifications for the job.
“The attorney general has full authority” to appoint those who qualify, he added.
Battle of the big brains: Trump investigations criminal law expert vs former Florida solicitor general
Both the defense and the Justice Department brought in ringers to argue over Lindsey Halligan’s prosecutorial authority on Thursday.
The Justice Department had its own bigwig, Henry Whitaker, the former Florida solicitor general. Now a top lawyer at the Justice Department, Whitaker has carved out a niche defending Trump US attorney appointments from criminal defendants across the country.
James Comey turned to Ephraim McDowell, an appellate specialist from the Supreme Court practice of the large law firm Cooley, to argue against Halligan’s authority.
Also advising the defense on the Comey case is Michael Dreeben. He is one of the most practiced arguers before appellate courts — especially the Supreme Court — in the country, and before he left the Justice Department had advised in the Robert Mueller and Jack Smith investigations around Donald Trump.
For Letitia James, her primary defense attorney Abbe Lowell — one of Washington’s most well-known defense attorneys and trial experts — argued Thursday on her behalf.
While the appellate experts may pop up in the cases sporadically, some would not be considered the primary lawyers on the trial teams in either case. That’s because this legal issue sits a bit apart from the allegations being levied against Comey and James.
Instead, their presence Thursday highlighted the intricacies of the law around federal vacancies and Justice Department political appointments, and the possibility that the issue of Halligan’s tenure could become subject to major future appeals.
Judge to rule on Halligan’s authority before Thanksgiving
Judge Cameron McGowan Currie said she intends to issue a decision on whether Lindsey Halligan is lawfully serving in her role before Thanksgiving.
Trials in both cases are tentatively set for January.
Judge says part of grand jury transcript in Comey case is "missing"
Judge Cameron McGowan Currie said Thursday that a section of the grand jury transcript in James Comey’s case is “missing.”
Currie said that she did not receive transcripts for part of the proceedings from late September.
“It appears there was no court reporter present,” the judge said, or the court reporter had stopped taking notes.
The missing section is important because Attorney General Pam Bondi had said she reviewed the presentations as part of the government’s arguments that Lindsey Halligan had the authority to secure an indictment against the former FBI director.
“It became obvious to me that the attorney general could not have reviewed” the entire proceeding, Currie said.
The “missing” portion of the grand jury transcripts that Currie referred to was from 4:28pm ET until the return of the indictment, which happened much later in the evening.
In a testy exchange with Justice Department attorney Henry Whitaker, Currie separately told him Bondi couldn’t have reviewed all grand jury transcripts when she signed a document on October 31 retroactively giving Halligan authority before the grand jury, saying she had.
That’s because days later, just last week, the Justice Department told the judge it had gotten additional records of the grand jury proceedings that the department didn’t previously have.
In preparation for Thursday’s hearing, Currie privately reviewed the transcripts of what Halligan said to the grand jury.
Currie said previously that she thought looking at the transcripts was “necessary to determine the extent of the indictment signer’s involvement in the grand jury proceedings.”
DOJ argues the issue over Halligan “is at best a paperwork error”
Henry Whitaker, a Justice Department attorney defending Lindsey Halligan’s authority, said Comey and James are trying to “elevate what is at best a paperwork error.”
The law, Whitaker argued, gives authority to the attorney general to appoint US attorneys and nothing says they are “limited to one appointment.”
The statute didn’t mean the attorney general can only “cram multiple appointments” in one, 120-day period, Whitaker said.
“We do not argue that the attorney general,” Whitaker continued, has a “fire and forget” authority.
“The idea that we are going to try to evade Senate confirmation,” Whitaker said, is “fanciful.”
Outside the courthouse, a frog arrived
A small group of protestors have gathered outside the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, to protest interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan’s authority in the James Comey and Letitia James cases.
Signs made by the protestors read “No president has the power to order someone to be arrested,” and “Vindictive prosecution is not justice, it’s a crime.”
One protestor arrived while the hearing was underway with a sign that read “disqualify retribution Barbie,” wearing a pink frog costume with the word, “Amphifa” on it.
The protestors have been peaceful.
"She was pretending," Letitia James attorney says of Halligan
Letitia James’ attorney Abbe Lowell got right to his point Thursday as he argued the federal prosecutor who brought the criminal charges against his client was unlawfully serving in her post: “She was pretending.”
“At the point in which Ms. Halligan walked into the grand jury, she was a private person,” Lowell said, referring to Lindsey Halligan.
Lowell is arguing that because Halligan wasn’t confirmed by the Senate, she had no authority to indict the New York attorney general earlier this fall.
But Lowell conceded that unlike in the James Comey’s case, the statute of limitations hasn’t expired for the charges that his client is facing – meaning that even if the judge agrees with his claim that Halligan didn’t have authority to file the charges, another federal prosecutor could still pursue the case.
“I suspect there is somebody in the future who could try this case,” he said.
Lawyer for Letitia James: DOJ's logic means "Steve Bannon or Elon Musk" could retroactively become a US attorney
Letitia James’ attorney, Abbe Lowell, argued Thursday that the “government’s reading” of the federal law at issue requires the judge “to add words” to it.
Lowell said that if the 120-day rule only served as a way for the attorney general to review her selection, as the government has argued, the rule would be useless.
Judge Cameron McGowan Currie noted as Lowell made his arguments that “Halligan acted alone in presenting both cases,” pointing to the evidence she’s reviewed so far in the pair of prosecutions.
Lowell told the judge that under the government’s theory “someone like Steve Bannon or Elon Musk” could “go into a grand jury and get an indictment and the attorney general could later authorize that.”
Halligan was chosen, Lowell argued, as someone who “would do what the president asks.”
Comey's attorney: Memo to retroactively give Halligan power shows she didn't have it at indictment
James Comey’s attorney said Thursday that a memo Attorney General Pam Bondi recently issued saying she appointed Lindsey Halligan as a “special attorney” should not be enough to keep the case alive.
Attorney Ephraim McDowell argued that the memo Bondi wrote in late October after his client had been indicted was intended to retroactively give her the authority to prosecute Comey.
But the memo, he said, not only means that Halligan was not lawfully serving as a US attorney when she single-handedly indicted Comey, but it also means Comey couldn’t be re-indicted now because the statute of limitations has since expired.
“The only thing that matters here is whether Ms. Halligan had lawful authority in that grand jury room, and she did not,” McDowell said.
“It’s pretty clear that the government was looking to appoint any person before the statute of limitations expired,” he added.
The memo signed by Bondi on October 31 said she had appointed Halligan to the other position “as of September 22, 2025.
Comey’s attorney says the case suffers from "a fundamental defect"
Setting off the hearing, Comey’s attorney Ephraim McDowell argued Lindsey Halligan’s appointment completely undercut her prosecution of the former FBI director.
The indictment suffers, McDowell said, from “a fundamental defect.”
Halligan brought the case before a grand jury alone despite having “no authority to do so,” McDowell said.
If Halligan can be appointed as the head prosecutor of the Eastern District of Virginia despite the 120-day limit on individuals serving in the job on an interim basis, McDowell argued, then that guardrail is useless.
Her appointment, he said, acted as an “evasion of the Appointments Clause and separation of powers.”
Hearing over Lindsey Halligan’s authority is underway
The high-stakes hearing that could determine the fate of the federal criminal cases brought against James Comey and Letitia James is underway at a courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia.
Comey, the former FBI director, is present for the proceeding before senior US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie. James, the attorney general of New York, is not at the hearing.
Currie is hearing arguments from attorneys for both James and Comey over their claim that Lindsey Halligan, President Donald Trump’s handpicked interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, is not lawfully serving in her post. Halligan is also at the hearing.
Why is a South Carolina judge overseeing Thursday’s hearing?
The challenge by James Comey and Letitia James to the legitimacy of the federal prosecutor who filed charges against them isn’t being overseen by the judges presiding over their trials – instead it’s being handled by a jurist brought in from South Carolina.
Here’s why:
The chief judge of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals said last month that he tapped Senior US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie to handle challenges to Lindsey Halligan’s authority “in the interest of maintaining public confidence in the impartial administration of justice.”
That’s because judges in the Eastern District of Virginia, where Halligan currently serves as the interim US Attorney, play a role in ensuring there is a top prosecutor in place for their district. Under federal law, judges in a district appoint an individual for that job if it is unfilled by a Senate-confirmed nominee after someone serves in the role on an interim basis for 120 days.
In May, the federal judges in the Eastern District of Virginia voted unanimously to keep Erik Siebert, whose 120-day stint as interim US Attorney was coming to a close, in the job. Among the judges who made the decision are US District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, who oversees Comey’s case, and Jamar Walker, who is presiding over James’ case.
Currie was appointed to the federal bench by former President Bill Clinton in 1994. She stopped serving as a full-time judge in 2013.
Comey and James are also pursuing other paths to getting their cases dismissed
James Comey and Letitia James are mounting several efforts to get their criminal cases thrown out ahead of trial beyond the challenge to Lindsey Halligan’s authority.
In Comey’s case, US District Judge Michael Nachmanoff will hold a hearing over that issue next week and in James’ case, US District Judge Jamar Walker will hear arguments over the bid in early December.
Other requests by Comey for Nachmanoff to throw out his case are based on claims that prosecutors abused the grand jury who approved his charges and that “outrageous government conduct” exists in his case are scheduled to be heard by Nachmanoff in early December.
A fight is also brewing in Comey’s case over whether the Justice Department has appropriately handled and given to Comey’s defense team the evidence in his case.
Both trials are tentatively scheduled for January.
Inside Lindsey Halligan's controversial work leading the Eastern District of Virginia US Attorney’s Office
The challenges to Lindsey Halligan in court arguments Thursday are just the latest way the former Trump personal attorney has come under fire in the Comey and James cases.
Halligan has also been attacked, especially by critics of the Justice Department, for how she took the Eastern District of Virginia’s US Attorney’s Office by storm with a quick, surprise appointment in late September.
Her predecessor, Erik Siebert, a Trump appointee, was pushed out of the job after overseeing the investigations into James Comey and Letitia James.
The White House had wanted Siebert to bring charges against James, despite prosecutors’ resistance that the investigation hadn’t yielded enough evidence for an indictment. Prosecutors also expressed concern internally about indicting Comey on yearsold allegations.
Halligan landed in the office a few days after Siebert’s departure, sent by Trump himself to Alexandria. She personally took the Comey case through a grand jury just days before the DOJ’s ability to bring a case expired. She also presented James’ indictment to the grand jury shortly thereafter, on another afternoon where she personally went to the courthouse.
She flexed her authority, with two career prosecutors fired and then by removing the prosecutor who led the office in the days after Siebert’s departure.
Halligan alone also signed the indictments — an atypical approach in criminal cases. Judge Cameron Currie has privately reviewed the transcripts of what Halligan said to the grand jury before Thursday’s hearing.
Currie wrote that she thought looking at the transcripts was “necessary to determine the extent of the indictment signer’s involvement in the grand jury proceedings,” since Comey and James argue that if Halligan is invalidly acting as a prosecutor, the indictments would need to be dismissed in full.
CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.
Trump is 0-3 on challenges to US attorneys
Trump’s US attorney appointments have been challenged three times — and the administration is 0-3.
Federal judges found the process that the Trump administration has used to insert three US attorneys in New Jersey, Nevada and the Central District of California is unlawful.
The judges, however, did not throw out the indictments because they said there were other assistant US attorneys who worked on the case and the interim US attorneys’ role was limited, if they were involved at all.
The bar is high for an indictment to be dismissed over an invalid signature - in general judges have said there must be evidence of misconduct before the grand jury.
In those three districts the interim US attorneys resigned just before the 120-day clock expired, were named special attorneys, and then designated as first assistant US attorneys allowing them to fill the role as acting US attorney. In each of those cases, the judges said that maneuver was unlawful. The cases are on appeal.
In addition to the challenge to Lindsey Halligan, the appointment of the US attorney for the Northern District of New York is also before a judge.
