A federal judge threw out the criminal cases against James Comey and Letitia James on Monday, concluding that the prosecutor handling the case was unlawfully appointed.
Lindsey Halligan, who Trump named the interim US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia in September, had “no lawful authority to present the indictment” against the former FBI director and New York attorney general, Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, wrote in her opinion.
She added that “all actions flowing from Ms Halligan’s defective appointment” were “unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside”.
The decision is a major win for Comey, who was charged with lying to Congress five years ago, and James, who was charged with mortgage fraud. Both unequivocally denied wrongdoing and said the cases were a thinly veiled effort by the Trump administration to punish them for opposing the president.
Currie dismissed both cases “without prejudice”, which means the government could theoretically try to bring the charges again under a properly appointed US attorney. But it is unclear if they could even do that in Comey’s case because the statute of limitations for the crime he is charged with passed on 30 September 2025.
US judge throws out criminal cases against James Comey and Letitia James
“I am heartened by today’s victory and grateful for the prayers and support I have received from around the country,” James said in a statement. “I remain fearless in the face of these baseless charges as I continue fighting for New Yorkers every single day.”
Comey also praised the decision.
“I’m grateful that the court ended the case against me which was a prosecution based on malevolence and incompetence,” he said in a recorded video. “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.”
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Ukraine makes significant changes to US ‘peace plan’, sources say
Ukraine has significantly amended the US “peace plan” to end the conflict, removing some of Russia’s maximalist demands, people familiar with the negotiations said, as European leaders warned that no deal could be reached quickly.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy may meet Donald Trump in the White House later this week, sources indicated, amid a flurry of calls between Kyiv and Washington. Ukraine is pressing for Europe to be involved in the talks.
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Pentagon investigating US senator over call for troops to refuse illegal orders
The Pentagon says it is investigating the Arizona senator Mark Kelly for possible breaches of military law after the federal lawmaker joined a handful of other Democrats in a video calling for US troops to refuse unlawful orders.
It is extraordinary for the Pentagon to directly threaten a sitting member of Congress with investigation. Until Donald Trump’s second presidency, the institution in charge of the US military had usually strived to appear apolitical.
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Trump begins process of designating Muslim Brotherhood chapters as terrorist groups
Trump began the process of designating certain Muslim Brotherhood chapters as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists, a move would bring sanctions against one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements.
Trump signed an executive order directing secretary of state Marco Rubio and treasury secretary Scott Bessent to submit a report on whether to designate any Muslim Brotherhood chapters, such as those in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, according to a White House factsheet. It orders the secretaries to move forward with any designations within 45 days of the report.
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Venezuela accuses US of using ‘narco-terrorism’ allegations to justify ‘regime change’
Venezuela’s government has accused the US of peddling “ridiculous hogwash” about its supposed role in sponsoring “narco-terrorism” as Washington continued to turn up the heat on Nicolás Maduro’s regime and leftwing European politicians warned South America faced being plunged into “a torrent of bloodshed”.
The Trump administration officially designated a Venezuelan group known as the “Cartel de los Soles” (the Cartel of the Suns) a terrorist organization – despite widespread doubts over its actual existence.
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Fox Corp chief told Sean Hannity that Trump could not go on air in 2020 if he attacked network
New revelations about the tense relationship between Fox News and Donald Trump in the fall of 2020 have emerged in a trove of thousands of court documents released Sunday as part of a massive defamation lawsuit filed against the network by voting technology company Smartmatic.
One exchange showed that Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of Fox News parent company Fox Corp, told star anchor Sean Hannity in a 1 October 2020 text chain that Trump could not appear on Fox again if he attacked the network.
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Trump hints support for fringe theory that Venezuela rigged 2020 election
Donald Trump on Sunday appeared to endorse the discredited conspiracy theory that Venezuela’s leadership controls electronic voting software worldwide and caused his 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.
White House officials have previously said that Trump’s increasingly bellicose policy toward Venezuela is driven by concerns about migration and the drug trade. But the president’s new comment, made on Truth Social, hints that his hostility to Venezuela may also be based on an outlandish, implausible theory ruled to be false by a judge in 2023.
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Trump DoJ’s focus on Maga goals harms other investigations, experts warn
Donald Trump’s weaponization of the US department of justice to focus on retribution against political foes, on fulfilling Maga goals and on granting pardons for allies has seen thousands of lawyers depart or be fired and weakened investigations in civil rights, national security and other areas, say ex-prosecutors and legal experts.
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What else happened today:
A church employee is under arrest in Houston, Texas, after being accused of posing as an ICE agent to extort money from a woman he had booked to give him a massage.
A controversial and secretive private company backed by the US and Israel that distributed food in Gaza has announced the end of its operations in the devastated territory.
The Trump administration announced it will cancel temporary asylum for about 10,000 Myanmar nationals living in the US, despite the country being ruled by a military dictatorship that has a record of executing dissidents.
The North Dakota supreme court revived the state’s abortion ban on Friday, once again making it a felony for doctors to perform the procedure except in medical emergencies or in some cases of rape or incest.
A flurry of social media posts from Maga influencers have laid bare the disorientation felt by members of Trump’s base at the spectacle of Friday’s cordial Oval Office meeting with Mamdani, who the president previously painted as a “communist lunatic”.
Viola Ford Fletcher, one of the last survivors of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre in Oklahoma, has died at 111. She spent her later years seeking justice for the deadly attack by a white mob on the thriving Black community where she lived as a child.
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 23 November 2025.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
