The Rupert Murdoch–owned Wall Street Journal has ridiculed Donald Trump and his loyalists’ failed attempt to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
The paper’s editorial board blasted Trump after a judge dismissed the cases against two of the president’s top adversaries because the Trump-picked prosecutor who filed the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was not lawfully appointed to the role of interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
“President Trump’s lawfare revenge tour has gone bust,” the board said. “In its rush for retribution, the Trump Administration cut corners.”
Halligan is a 36-year-old former Miss Colorado beauty pageant contestant with no experience in criminal law. She was chosen by Trump to be New Jersey’s top prosecutor after her predecessor, Erik Siebert, resigned for refusing to bow to pressure to charge Comey and James with disputed allegations of lying to Congress and fraud, respectively.
Both cases were widely accused of being part of a political retribution campaign carried out by the president against his adversaries with the help of loyalist federal prosecutors.
Under federal law, a president may temporarily fill a vacant U.S. attorney position for 120 days until a district court appoints a permanent replacement. That 120-day period had expired in May after Siebert was named interim U.S. attorney for Eastern Virginia, and the courts decided to keep him on.
The White House and Attorney General Pam Bondi attempted to argue that the 120-day clock reset when Halligan was brought in specifically to file charges against Comey and James after Siebert’s departure.
U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie rejected the argument, noting that if it were accepted, the government could “evade the Senate confirmation process indefinitely by stacking successive 120-day appointments.”
“The implications of a contrary conclusion are extraordinary. It would mean the Government could send any private citizen off the street—attorney or not—into the grand jury room to secure an indictment so long as the Attorney General gives her approval after the fact,” Currie wrote. “That cannot be the law.”
As the Journal’s editorial board noted, the vacancy law for federal prosecutors is “designed for a temporary fill-in, not Senate circumvention.”
“This is what happens when officials don’t follow legal procedure. They lose cases,” the board wrote. “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. If Mr. Trump tries again, he might end up with cases that are two-time legal losers.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
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