President Donald Trump and his administration’s Department of Justice got a brutal tongue-lashing by the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board on Monday for the failure of their “revenge lawfare” scheme, branding them as the “gang that couldn’t indict straight.”
This follows a federal judge’s move to dismiss the indictments of former FBI Director James Comey for false statements and New York Attorney General Letitia James for bank fraud, because the inexperienced and ill-equipped prosecutor Trump installed, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed to the U.S. attorney’s office.
“In its rush for retribution, the Trump Administration cut corners,” wrote the board, a frequent critic of Trump’s policies, particularly on tariffs. “In January, after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the Administration named Erik Siebert as interim prosecutor for Eastern Virginia. Once his three-month lease was set to expire, the judges of the district chose to retain him. But Mr. Siebert was reluctant to charge Mr. Comey and Ms. James, as Mr. Trump demanded, and he stepped down in September. Then the Administration purported to install Ms. Halligan, who had no experience as a prosecutor.”
The vacancy law that lets presidents fill prosecutor offices on a 120-day basis, wrote the board, “is designed for a temporary fill-in, not Senate circumvention” — and the judge called out the DOJ on their misuse of the law.
The upshot, the board wrote, is that “This is what happens when officials don’t follow legal procedure. They lose cases. Mr. Trump was so eager to indict his enemies, and Attorney General Pam Bondi was so quick to go along, that it all unraveled at the pull of one legal thread.”
“The Trump Administration could refile the charges, though the statute of limitations may have expired in Mr. Comey’s case,” the board concluded. “If Mr. Trump tries again, he might end up with cases that are two-time legal losers.”
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