I'm grateful that the court ended the case against me, which was a prosecution based on malevolence and incompetence, and a reflection of what the Department of Justice has become under Donald Trump, which is heartbreaking.

That was former FBI director James Comey. On Monday, a judge ordered that charges against Comey and New York Attorney General,

Leticia James, both targets of President Donald Trump be dismissed.

What led to both cases being tossed and where does the Justice Department go from here?

Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt.

I'm Dana Taylor.

Today is Wednesday, November 26, 2025.

For more on the indictments, I'm joined now by USA Today National News Reporter Aisha Baxi.

Asia, it's good to have you back on the excerpt.

Thanks, Dana.

It's good to be here.

Asia, on what grounds were both cases dismissed? Are the circumstances here unusual?

The circumstances here are unusual. The grounds were exactly the same, even though these were two

separate cases. That's because these cases were brought essentially by the exact same prosecutor,

a woman named Lindsay Halligan. She was

appointed as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in late September by Attorney

General Pam Bondi. It seemed after prodding from President Trump. And she was the only prosecutor

to present the cases to the grand juries that

ultimately indicted both James Comey and Letitia James. She was the only prosecutor to sign those

indictments. So she really became a crucial kind of fixed point when it came to looking at the

indictments that each of these two defendants faced in different cases.

And the judge in this case basically decided that Halligan wasn't lawfully appointed.

...