Welcome to the News Hour. President Donald Trump's Department of Justice was on defense today in a Northern Virginia courtroom. A judge is weighing whether to disqualify the prosecutor pursuing charges against former FBI director James Comey and New York's Attorney General Letitia James. That prosecutor, Lindsay Halligan, is a Trump ally with no prosecutorial experience.

She was sworn in days after the previous U.S. attorney resigned after being pressured to indict Comey and James.

President Trump has cast both Comey and James as his political enemies and called for their prosecutions

after they pursued investigations into him.

Glenn Kirshner is a former assistant U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.

He joins us now after sitting in on today's hearing.

It's good to see you.

Good to see you, Jeff.

So let's start with this.

How unusual is it for a criminal case to hinge on whether the prosecutor was lawfully appointed?

Very unusual. This is a high-stakes motion that we saw litigated today.

Because, you know, sort of at the bottom of it all, if the judge, Judge Curry, who is presiding over this motion,

decides that Lindsay Halligan was not lawfully appointed because she was the only

person in the grand jury obtaining this indictment. It would very likely result in the case being

dismissed outright against both James Comey and Letitia James. And really the only thing left to argue

about would be whether it should be

indicted with prejudice or without prejudice. With prejudice means there would be a chance for DOJ

to go back in and try to correct the error without prejudice, rather. With prejudice means it is

over. And Donald Trump will never get to, you know, take James Comey or Letitia James to trial.

The defense lawyers pointed to President Trump's public pressure,

public pressure to include his truth social posts to see one right there on the screen,

as evidence that these prosecutions were politically driven.

...