Pam Bondi's time travel meant she 'obtained and signed' Comey, Letitia James indictments 'herself'

Source: Law & Crime

Mar 16th, 2026, 10:19 am


The Trump administration maintains that Lindsey Halligan's roller coaster and ephemeral debut as prosecutor of her former client's rivals was totally "harmless," and that ex-FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James' wins by dismissal should be short-lived.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche argued in a brief Friday at the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that Halligan was lawfully appointed because the AG is "fully empowered" to make successive 120-day interim appointments under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA), an argument that did not succeed in the court below.

Perhaps recognizing that assertion may not fly, the DOJ's backstop argument rested on Bondi's move to retroactively ratify Halligan's actions before the grand juries through a special attorney title. The AG has claimed the Halloween maneuver "cured any arguable flaw" and that even if Halligan wasn't lawfully the interim U.S. attorney she was at least lawfully empowered by Bondi to supervise the office and conduct prosecutions.

In November, Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie ordered the dismissal of the criminal cases against Comey and James, finding that Bondi's attempt to ratify Halligan's signature came "too late in the day" and was particularly problematic because she was the only prosecutor to sign the indictments and present to the grand jury. Bondi now says "it does not matter" if Halligan's signature on Comey's indictment was valid because the retroactive ratification of Halligan's actions "'made it such that [s]he,'" the AG, "obtained and signed the indictments herself."

Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/pam-bondis-time-travel-meant-she-obtained-and-signed-comey-letitia-james-indictments-herself-and-lindsey-halligan-failure-does-not-matter-doj/