October 20, 2025, defense motions On October 20, Comey's defense attorney filed two
motions to dismiss, one for selective or vindictive prosecution and one challenging Halligan's appointment as unlawful. The latter motion was referred to
Albert Diaz, the
chief judge of the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, who assigned this part of the case to
Cameron McGowan Currie, a senior judge in the
U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina; the assignment allows the motion to be heard in a district other than the one where Halligan serves as the interim U.S. Attorney.
October 30, 2025, defense motions On October 30, 2025, Comey's legal team filed a second set of motions to dismiss the indictment, arguing that the charges were legally defective and that the grand-jury process was compromised by procedural irregularities and political interference.
Core arguments for dismissal Comey's defense asserted that the perjury count was invalid because his 2020 congressional testimony was both
literally true and based on a
fundamentally ambiguous question. During the 2020 hearing, Senator Cruz's inquiry appeared to concern former FBI Deputy Director
Andrew McCabe, while prosecutors now allege that Comey lied about
Daniel C. Richman. The filing stated that "fundamental to any false-statement charge are both clear questions and false answers. Neither exists here."
November 5, 2025, hearing During a November 5, 2025, hearing in Alexandria, Virginia, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick sharply criticized the Justice Department's prosecution accusing special prosecutor Lindsey Halligan of taking a "highly unusual" "indict first, investigate second" approach. Fitzpatrick ordered prosecutors to turn over all grand-jury and investigative materials seized from
Daniel Richman, a Columbia University law professor and longtime Comey confidant, after finding that the government had not shared the evidence with the defense. The seized communications originated from a prior internal FBI leak inquiry known as Arctic Haze. Comey's legal team had argued that prosecutors' withholding of evidence, combined with irregularities in Halligan's grand-jury presentation—including keeping jurors late into the evening and signing two versions of the indictment—supported their claim of vindictive and politically motivated prosecution. Despite his rebuke of the DOJ's "indict first, investigate second" way of handling the case, Fitzpatrick declined to block prosecutors from including additional discovery materials in future filings. Legal analysts noted that the decision to compel the release of grand-jury records was a major procedural victory for the defense, giving Comey's team its first opportunity to examine how Halligan presented the evidence. Comey attended the hearing. Currie simultaneously considered a similar motion from New York Attorney General
Letitia James, whom
Halligan is also prosecuting. As Halligan is the only federal prosecutor who signed the indictments of Comey and James, retroactively invalidating her appointment could end those cases. To recap, President
Donald Trump replaced U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert, who had reportedly resisted bringing charges, with Halligan, a former personal lawyer to the president with no prior prosecutorial experience. Within days, Halligan obtained indictments against Comey and against James. Because the district's judges voted to install Siebert it was necessary to assign a judge from another jurisdiction to decide any issue of the legality of Halligan's appointment. Defense lawyers argued that Halligan's appointment violated 28 U.S.C. § 546, which provides that after an interim period expires, district judges, not the president or attorney general, must select a replacement until Senate confirmation. They warned that the administration's interpretation would permit indefinite reappointments, allowing an attorney general to perpetually install loyalists without Senate oversight. U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, who presides over the overall case, subsequently stayed the order to give the government time to file objections. Fitzpatrick's (stayed) decision followed special prosecutor Lindsey Halligan's appeal of a November 5 ruling directing disclosure of the transcripts, in which the government argued that there were no "factually based grounds for disclosure" and asked that "the Court review the transcript of the grand jury in camera." At the hearing, Fitzpatrick stated that "the government's actions in this case—whether purposeful, reckless, or negligent—raise genuine issues of misconduct, are inextricably linked to the government's grand jury presentation, and deserve to be fully explored by the defense." After reviewing video recordings of the grand jury proceedings, he concluded that factually based grounds for disclosure existed. For dismissal on vindictive-prosecution grounds, the defense would have to establish that prosecutors "acted with genuine animus" against him or were "prevailed upon to bring the charges by another with animus such that the prosecutor could be considered a 'stalking horse,'". Comey's attorneys argued that dismissal is warranted because prosecutors acted with "genuine animus", Halligan served as a "stalking horse" for Trump, and that Comey would not have been prosecuted "but for" that animus. Judge Nachmanoff pressed the defense on whether interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan acted as a "stalking horse" for Trump; defense attorney Dreeben responded she "did what she was told."
The declination memo Nachmanoff questioned whether career prosecutors had prepared a declination memo recommending against charges. Assistant U.S. Attorney N. Tyler Lemons said he had been instructed by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche not to reveal whether such a memo existed.
November 24, 2025, case dismissed On November 24, 2025, Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie dismissed the criminal case against
James Comey in the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, holding that interim U.S. attorney
Lindsey Halligan had been unlawfully appointed in violation of and the
Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The court simultaneously dismissed the related indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James, concluding that Halligan lacked lawful authority to bring either case. Reuters described the ruling as an "extraordinary rebuke" of the Trump administration's efforts to circumvent Senate confirmation by installing political loyalists in federal prosecutor posts. Judge Currie found that the Attorney General's 120-day interim appointment authority had expired on May 21, 2025, months before Halligan's September 22 appointment, which rendered her selection legally void and left appointment authority with the district court. Because Halligan was never validly appointed and acted alone before the grand jury, the court held that all prosecutorial actions she took, including grand jury presentations and signed indictments, were void. Judge Currie rejected the Justice Department's attempt to retroactively cure the defect, writing that such a theory would allow "any private citizen off the street—attorney or not—to secure an indictment" so long as the Attorney General later approved it. The ruling left uncertainty about whether Comey could ever be prosecuted again. The five-year statute of limitations on his alleged offenses expired on September 30, 2025, and analysts noted that prosecutors may now be time-barred from refiling charges. Comey welcomed the decision, calling the prosecution "malevolent and incompetent", though he suggested he expected President Trump to continue targeting him. == Reactions ==