James Comey wants case dropped, Trump's prosecutor disqualified

Former FBI Director James Comey on Monday filed motions seeking the dismissal of criminal charges against him, arguing Lindsey Halligan wasn't properly appointed and that the case was politically motivated.

WASHINGTON — Former FBI Director James Comey filed motions seeking the dismissal of the criminal charges brought against him, arguing that the lawyer President Donald Trump named to prosecute him, Lindsey Halligan, wasn't properly appointed and that the case was politically motivated.

Comey's team argued that the indictment arose from "multiple glaring constitutional violations and an egregious abuse of power by the federal government" and that the "bedrock principles of due process and equal protection have long ensured that government officials may not use courts to punish and imprison their perceived personal and political enemies."

Halligan, a former insurance lawyer who is now interim head of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, was “defectively appointed to her office as an interim U.S. Attorney,” Comey's attorneys argued, adding that her appointment “violated the congressionally designed and constitutionally compelled means for the Attorney General to appoint an official as interim U.S. Attorney.”

Comey's team went on to argue that "because no properly appointed Executive Branch official sought and obtained the indictment, the indictment is equally a nullity.”

Getty ImagesComey, one of several Trump critics targeted by the Justice Department this year, has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, which focus on congressional testimony in 2020 when he stood by previous testimony he gave in 2017 regarding the authorization of leaks to the media when he was head of the FBI.