TRANSCRIPT
A federal judge in the United States has dismissed criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New-York Attorney General Letitia James.
The ruling found that Lindsay Halligan, the loyalist prosecutor installed by Mr Trump to prosecute the cases, was brought in unlawfully.
The judge dismissed the cases without prejudice, meaning new indictments can be sought with a different prosecutor.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says there are plans to appeal very soon.
“No, because Lindsay Halligan was legally appointed and that's the administration's position. I know there was a judge who is clearly trying to shield Letitia James and James Comey from receiving accountability and that is why they took this unprecedented action to throw away the indictments against these two individuals. But the Department of Justice will be appealing very soon.”
Letitia James and James Comey, both vocal critics who have led investigations into Donald Trump, have been longtime targets of the U-S President.
As FBI Director, James Comey oversaw investigations into alleged ties between the Trump 2016 campaign and the Russian government, later calling Mr Trump unfit for office.
Letitia James, an elected Democrat, successfully sued Mr Trump and his family real estate company for fraud.
The indictment charged James Comey with lying to and obstructing Congress during testimony he gave in 2020 about whether he had authorised leaks to the media about sensitive political investigations.
Responding to the dismissal, Mr Comey says he won't give in.
“This case mattered to me personally, obviously, but it matters most because a message has to be sent that the President of the United States cannot use the Department of Justice to target his political enemies. I don't care what your politics are, you have to see that is fundamentally un-American and a threat to the rule of law that keeps all of us free. I know that Donald Trump will probably come after me again, and my attitude is going to be the same. I'm innocent, I am not afraid, and I believe in an independent federal judiciary, the gift from our founders that protects us from a would be tyrant.”
Shortly after Mr Comey was indicted, Ms James was charged with bank fraud and making false statements in loan documents.
Both pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Letitia James says Donald Trump is blatantly pursuing his perceived political opponents.
“But this is not about me. This is about all of us and about a justice system which has been weaponised. A justice system which has been used as a tool of revenge.”
The charges came around two weeks after a social media tirade from Donald Trump on September 20.
In the posts, which some speculate were intended as direct messages to his Attorney General Pam Bondi, Mr Trump wrote that 'nothing was being done' to pursue charges against the pair.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says President Trump is simply correcting past injustices.
“I wouldn't say he's going after them. I think the president is more determined than ever to see accountability in this country, yes, and to correct the wrongs of the weaponisation of our justice system that we saw under the previous administration and Joe Biden.”
The dismissal comes after both Mr Comey and Ms James accused Mr Trump of violating the US Constitution's Appointments Clause and federal law by appointing his longtime attorney, Lindsay Halligan.
After Erik Siebert, a Trump-appointed US attorney, refused to pursue the charges citing a lack of credible evidence, Donald Trump replaced him with Ms Halligan.
Swiftly following her appointment, Ms Halligan pursued the charges, even as other career prosecutors refused to take on the case.
She had no previous experience prosecuting criminal cases.
James Comey says he's inspired by those who refused to take on the case.
“I'm grateful that the court ended the case against me, which was a prosecution based on malevolence and incompetence and a reflection of what the Department of Justice has become under Donald Trump, which is heartbreaking. But I was also inspired by the example of the career people who refused to be part of this travesty. It cost some of them their jobs, which is painful, but it preserved their integrity, which is beyond price, and I know they will serve again.”
US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie found that Lindsay Halligan had no legal authority to bring the charges.
Aside from allegations that the appointment violated the constitution, lawyers for Mr Comey and Ms James also sought to argue the case was politically motivated.
Ms Halligan has also come under scrutiny by courts, with one judge finding she may have made significant legal errors when presenting evidence to the jury indicting Comey.
Ms Leavitt says the dismissal was unfair and made by a partisan judge with political motives.
“His reaction was, we've seen this before, we have seen partisan judges take unprecedented steps to try to intervene in accountability before, but we're not going to give up. And I know that the Department of Justice intends to appeal these rulings very soon. If they haven't already, I may have missed it.”
