Trump Gets Wrecked as Dismissal Tanks Comey Case

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0:30Michael Popok:No, Judge Curry never bought what the Attorney General Pam Bondi was selling, never picked up what she was laying down, that she was able to ratify what Lindsay Halligan did as a U.S. attorney or a special attorney because she was able to look at a transcript that didn't exist. No, Judge Curry said, among other things, and for other reasons, I'm going to dismiss the indictments of both James Comey and Letitia James. And I'm going to bounce Lindsey Halligan as having been improperly, unconstitutionally and illegally appointed in violation of the appointments clause, in violation of 28 U.S.C. section 546.

1:09Michael Popok:And therefore, everything that she did was what we call ultra varies or against the law and void. Bye-bye indictments. Now, it means something different for James Comey, former FBI director, than it means for Letitia James. Let me tell you up front what's going to happen now, besides the inevitable emergency appeal by Donald Trump, besides the inevitable attempt to overturn what Judge Curry just did, and to see if the United States Supreme Court decides to weigh in as well after the Fourth Circuit. Besides that, Judge Curry has declared that there is a vacancy in the Eastern District of Virginia U.S.

1:48Michael Popok:Attorney's Office. And step back, Pam Bondi and Donald Trump, you're not able to fill it because she has said in her order it can only be filled at present, the vacancy, by the district court judges of the Eastern District of Virginia. Now, that's one of the reasons they brought her up from South Carolina, because they didn't want her to have a conflict. So now the Eastern District of Virginia judges, if they're smart, and they are, they're going to get together and they're going to appoint a U.S. attorney in lieu of Lindsey Halligan, which puts Judge Nakmanoff and Judge Walker in a weird position.

2:24Michael Popok:Because even though the indictments have been dismissed, the criminal cases have not technically been closed yet. Nakmanoff has the case he's presiding over with James Comey and Judge Walker with Letitia James. I'm going to talk about that procedural twist in a minute. but you got the headline. Now that was the ruling by Judge Curry, not to be confused by the ruling that we're waiting on by Judge Nachmanoff in the Comey case as to whether he's going to dismiss the indictment and close the criminal prosecution with prejudice once and for all because of an invalid, because of, sorry, vindictive prosecution by an abuse of power by Lindsay Allegan when she was acting as if she was the U.S.

3:03Michael Popok:attorney when she is not. Now, you know why Judge Curry kept calling Lindsey Halligan the indictment signer, the indictment signer, or the government council never called her by her title. That's going to be decided by Nachmanov sometime around between now, Thanksgiving, or just after. And it all has a major implication for Comey because his prosecution is out of time. The statute of limitations has run. Judge Curry has already ruled that Lindsey Halligan was invalidly appointed. So she was never able to obtain that indictment. So there was no indictment, defective or otherwise, obtained within the statute of limitations of five years for a perjury charge against James Comey.

3:46Michael Popok:And we're now almost two months after that. There's no time. You cannot bring new charges with a new grand jury and a new prosecutor, even if that one's validly appointed or confirmed because the statute of limitations on the perjury charge for James Comey has run. Letitia James is in a different boat. I'm glad you're here on Midas Touch Network for me to kind of give you this drill down after you got the top line of the headline. I want to give you the more information, right? Letitia James's case is different. Letitia James was indicted for mortgage fraud. It's a bullshit case. We all know it.

4:21Michael Popok:There were two grand juries. The head of the major crimes unit, Liz Urie, was fired because she issued a memo that said you can't indict her. There's no mortgage fraud here, which is automatically reasonable doubt. You had a grand jury in Norfolk, Virginia, that didn't indict. You got a grand jury in Alexandria that did. It's a mess. But that's for another day because there's no statute of limitations issue. but at least we got rid of Lindsay Halligan Donald Trump's hand-chosen prosecutor, right? Let me read to you from the pages that I think are the most powerful within Judge Curry's orders. There's actually two orders but they're almost identical except one is in the Comey case and one is in the Letitia James case Let's go to page Let's go to page 17 She's gone through One particular statute decides this 28 USC section 546.

5:18Michael Popok:She says it's clear on its face. The president or the Department of Justice gets one pick for an interim U.S. attorney. After that, there's a split of power. President gets one pick. After that, he gets to keep going and try to get his confirmed nominee through the Senate, which he hasn't even put up anybody in the Eastern District of Virginia. There's nobody in the pipeline. But until then, the district court judges pick the U.S. attorney. And they tried to do a series of interim U.S. attorneys. They had a U.S. attorney. She resigned to the day of the inauguration. Eric Siebert was picked by Pam Bondi, conservative Republican, but they fired him or forced him out because he refused to indict Comey and Letitia James.

5:59Michael Popok:But that's it. It's a single-use ticket like at Disney. You don't get to come back the next day. So he's gone. So they try to do it again. Oh, another one, Lindsay Allegan, another 120 days, another 120 days, Another 120 days. And the judge says, no, you can't do that. You're doing an end run around the appointment clause. The appointment clause says you get to nominate, but the Senate gets to confirm on advice and consent you're a nominee. You can't do an end run around it, go in the back door and just keep appointing every 90 days somebody else. Oh, Lindsay Halligan didn't get it? Well, how is Lindsay Halligan even going to get the U.S.

6:35Michael Popok:attorney position? She hasn't even been put up for it. So the judge says, no, you can't do it that way. So she went through the history. She says on page 19, when an appointment violates the appointments clause from the jump, the actor has exercised power that she did not possess. citing to Justice Gorsuch and citing to Justice Thomas, an unconstitutionally appointed person, the government action taken by that erroneously claiming the mantle of executive power and thus has taken no authority at all. That's how she characterizes it. She says on page 20 of her order, in light of these principles, I conclude that all actions flowing from Ms.

7:19Michael Popok:Halligan's defective appointment, including securing and signing Mr. Comey's indictment, constitute unlawful exercises of executive power. It must be set aside. There is simply no alternative course to cure the unconstitutional problem. She says on page 21, after citing a decision by the Office of Legal Counsel back in the Reagan days led by Sam Alito on the Supreme Court, siding with her position, she said that her appointment, Halligan being appointed by Pam Bondi was not a clerical error. And she can't use another statute to fix her problem now. I got a secret. I'm obsessed with my Lola blanket.

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8:39Michael Popok:It's machine washable, no pilling, no shedding, and it stays flawless after every wash. It's the perfect gift, personal, beautiful, and something people actually use every day. Give the gift of softness this holiday season with Lola Blankets. For a limited time, our listeners are getting a huge 40 % off their entire order at lolablankets.com by using code LEGALAF at checkout. Just head to lolablankets.com and use code LEGALAF for 40 % off. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. She says on page 25, I've already concluded that Ms.

9:20Michael Popok:Halligan's original appointment was invalid and that the attorney's attempt to retroactively bestow special attorney status on her was also ineffective. She could not have authorized Ms. Halligan, Bondi, who was not an attorney for the government at the time. She wasn't even an attorney for the government to present Mr. Comey's indictment to the grand jury. You can't retroactively say somebody invalid is now valid. She said it would mean if the implications of a contrary conclusion are extraordinary, it would mean the government would send any private citizen off the street. That's what Lindsay Halligan's been reduced to, a private citizen off the street who's not an attorney to secure an indictment as long as the attorney general gives her approval after the fact.

10:01Michael Popok:She also concludes that the position is open. There is no U.S. attorney. They should now shut off her badge and her security badge at the door of the Department of Justice and not let her in. There is a vacancy. And that vacancy can only be filled by the district court judges until a U.S. attorney is nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate under 28 U.S.C. Section 541. It is so ordered. Cameron McGowan Curry, senior United States district judge. She signed it from her chambers in Columbia, South Carolina, November 24th, 2025. What's going to happen next? It's going to happen next.

10:46Michael Popok:Trump's going to take a Department of Justice is going to take an emergence. Besides the social media posts, a liberal crazy judge in South Carolina who wasn't elected by a popular vote of the people, just ruled against our ability to the president's ability to appoint a U.S. attorney. Okay. Then, well, enough of that. Then they'll file an emergency application to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that sits over Virginia. I think that gets denied, three zero, two to one. Then they'll take an emergency shadow dock an appeal. I think it goes through Chief Justice Roberts up to the United States Supreme Court.

11:22Michael Popok:And then, you know, we're on the clock with the Supreme Court at that point. Are they going to do an administrative stay for a couple of days while they do some briefing schedule like they just did about the maps, the congressional maps, probably, or they just reject it because they think it's very clear that under 546, the president doesn't have that power. And see, unlike other times when the Supreme Court sided with Donald Trump, we're not talking about foreign affairs. We're not talking about taxes and tariffs. We're not talking about commander in chief powers. We're talking about a statute and the separation of powers related to that.

11:56Michael Popok:Now, could they argue that that statute passed by Congress, which has been used for the last 30 years, 40 years, is somehow a violation of the separation of powers because it lets the judicial branch pick an executive branch officer? Maybe, maybe. And we'll see. But that's what's going to happen next. We're going to see a major crisis show up again at the doorstep of the United States Supreme Court. This time, It'll go through Chief Justice Roberts. So until my next report here and on Legal AF, the YouTube channel, on this fast-breaking story, there's so much that's going to happen over the next 72 hours, I assure you.

12:32Michael Popok:Judge Nakmanoff is trying to decide whether the indictment should be dismissed for a vindictive prosecution in the Comey case. Judge Walker, the same thing in the Letitia James case. Judge Nakmanoff already said he's going to make a ruling soon on that. There's also a motion pending before Judge Nakmanoff to get rid of the indictment because of the grand jury defects. The way that Lindsay Halligan, who is obviously illegally appointed, also screwed up her presentation and violated Comey's Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment and Sixth Amendment rights. The question is, will Nachmanov say it's now moot because there's already been a prior ruling that Lindsay Halligan was improperly appointed and everything that flowed from her appointment is invalid?

13:12Michael Popok:I think he goes in that direction. So we got that going on, right? Right. And I think I'm hopefully I'll be able to report soon that the district court judges get together and they appoint somebody and get a new U.S. attorney. And hopefully that U.S. attorney has some credibility, has some ethics, has some professionalism and doesn't try to indict Letitia James and James Comey again. I think till we end it this way, my opinion, my professional opinion is that James Comey's indictment and criminal case is closed. that he's out of time, that the Department of Justice is out of time on the statute of limitations on perjury.

13:49Michael Popok:And the fact that there was an invalid indictment does not stop the clock. It doesn't let them fix their problem with a new prosecutor and a new grand jury. Letitia James, though, I think if they get another MAGA prosecutor in there, and it's getting harder and harder for Donald Trump to make anything like that happen with his slip on power, slipping from his grip, then they might be able to re-indict her on mortgage fraud. But there's already bad evidence for the Department of Justice and great evidence for Letitia James about a prior grand jury in Norfolk, Virginia, that wouldn't indict her.

14:23Michael Popok:And a major career prosecutor, head of the major crimes division, who said she shouldn't be prosecuted, which is going to be part of the presentation to the jury. Reasonable doubt, anyone? I'm glad you're here. Hit the free subscribe button on Midas Touch. do the same thing on Legal AF. I'll see you in my next report to update you on this fast-moving story. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, Morning AF.

15:01Michael Popok:What else? All the other contributors from Legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes where Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.

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