November 24, 2025 12:08 PM UTC

Another Trump Lawyer from Colorado Fails as Comey and Leticia James Cases Dismissed

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• by: Colorado Pols

There’s big news today breaking in two cases in which President Trump was seeking to punish his enemies through ham-handed legal efforts.

As The New York Times explains:

A federal judge tossed out separate criminal charges against the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, and the New York Attorney General Letitia James, saying their prosecutor’s appointment was invalid — a major defeat for the president’s effort to make the criminal justice system do as he pleases.

The twin rulings by Judge Cameron McGowan Currie center on the unusual nature in which Lindsey Halligan was picked by Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi to become a U.S. attorney and proceed on her own in a matter of days to indict two of the president’s most reviled targets.

Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled Monday to dismiss the Comey case, writing: “I agree with Mr. Comey that the attorney general’s attempt to install Ms. Halligan as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid. And because Ms. Halligan had no lawful authority to present the indictment, I will grant Mr. Comey’s motion and dismiss the indictment without prejudice.”

She made a similar finding in the case against Letitia James, who was charged with misleading financial institutions to get a better rate on a mortgage.

This outcome is not a major surprise to those following the case; U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie has long seemed skeptical of the legality of Lindsey Halligan’s appointment as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Trump appointed Halligan in September — despite no prosecutorial experience — mainly because she agreed to go after James Comey and Leticia James as demanded by the Big Orange Guy. She quickly proved to be utterly unprepared to handle big prosecutions.

Halligan went to high school and college in Colorado and is a former runner up in the Miss Colorado USA pageant, which seems to be what made her qualified for anything as far as Trump was concerned.

Mario Nicolais of The Colorado Sun recently wrote about Halligan’s disastrous prosecution attempts of Comey and James:

When Jenna Ellis pleaded guilty to a felony and subsequently lost her license to practice law, it seemed that the era of high-profile, under-qualified attorneys linked to Colorado and working for President Donald Trump had closed.

Someone must be holding Lindsey Halligan’s beer because she has gone above and beyond anything Ellis ever did.

The Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Halligan has made a fool of herself, her office and the Department of Justice. In her very first case, the one Trump installed her to prosecute, she has bungled the proceedings so badly that she may lose her law license years faster than it took Ellis.

Halligan spent her formative years in Colorado. She attended Holy Family High School in Broomfield before continuing her Catholic education at Regis University and eventually leaving the state to get a law degree from the University of Miami. Despite her education, it seems likely Trump viewed her years competing in the Miss Colorado beauty pageant as her most attractive attribute.

Halligan’s legal career may end up being shorter than that of fellow former Coloradan Jenna Ellis, who made a fool of herself in trying to prosecute various allegations of election fraud related to the 2020 Presidential election. As Nicolais continues:

When her immediate predecessor refused to prosecute former FBI head honcho James Comey, Halligan wormed her way into the appointment promising to get it done. Under the pressure of a looming statute of limitations deadline, Halligan presented the case to a grand jury alone and alone signed the indictment. Apparently, everyone else in the office refused to be complicit.

In her effort to do Trump’s bidding, she misstated basic legal principles (including Comey’s right to silence), misled the grand jury about additional evidence, and then, to top it off, apparently never presented the operative indictment for the grand jury to vote on and approve.

A judge in the case has said the misconduct may lead to dismissal of charges and former Trump attorney (and another Denverite) Ty Cobb has said Halligan should be disbarred.

There is a good reason that experienced prosecutors wanted nothing to do with the cases against Comey and James, but Trump thought he could appoint Prosecutor Barbie and jam through indictments anyway. Once again, the Judicial Branch said, “Nope.”

Halligan might be lucky if she only ends up out of a job, as opposed to losing her license to practice law. From Halligan and Ellis to Ty Cobb and John Eastman, attorneys with ties to Colorado seem to find their careers in rough shape once they start working for Trump.