US judge dismisses case against ex-FBI chief James Comey and Letitia James rebuking Trump prosecutor

Washington: A US judge on Tuesday (AEDT) threw out charges against former FBI Director James Comey for a procedural error, in an extraordinary setback for the Justice Department in a case sought by President Donald Trump as part of his campaign against perceived political enemies.

U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff in Alexandria, Virginia, ruled that the indictment brought against Comey in September was invalid because the grand jury that approved the charges had not seen the final version of the document.

The decision is an embarrassing rebuke for Lindsey Halligan, a close Trump ally who took over the investigation as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia despite having no prior prosecutorial experience.

Halligan, Trump’s former personal lawyer, appeared before the grand jury alone after no career prosecutors agreed to sign on to the case.

Lawsuit against Trump critics

Comey is one of three prominent critics of the Republican president who have been indicted by Trump’s Justice Department in recent months; It violates longstanding norms of independence in federal investigations and has led to criticism that Trump is using the legal system to suppress dissent.

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Comey was accused of making false statements and obstructing a congressional investigation. Prosecutors alleged that he lied at the 2020 hearing, telling the Senate Judiciary Committee that he stood by his previous testimony that he did not allow the FBI to leak information about investigations into Trump and his 2016 presidential election rival Hillary Clinton.

Comey has had an adversarial relationship with Trump since his first term in 2017, when the president fired Comey while he was overseeing an investigation into alleged ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.