Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump BADLY EMBARRASSED In Brutal New Court Ruling

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

A judge throws out DOJ charges against James Comey and Letitia James—handing Trump a BIG DEFEAT. Jon Lovett is joined by Leah Litman from Strict Scrutiny to unpack the fallout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you have four new tires, every drive feels fresh. Right now, buy three select tires and get one for just a dollar during the Buick certified service fresh dart tire event. Visit Buick.com slash service offers or see dealer for full details. At participating, USGM dealers only, highest or equal value tire will be $1. Offer ends May 31st, 2026. Not available with other offers. Hey, everybody. Tough news for those who are pretty excited about Trump's political prosecutions. Good news for everybody else. A federal judge dismissed the cases against James Comey and Letitia James.

Here to talk about it. We have strict scrutiny zone. Leah Litman. Leah, what happened? So basically, the judge announced that none of these shitheads can read. And therefore, the indictments were illegal. Basically, the bottom line is the judge concluded that the appointment of Lindsay Halligan, you know, former White House aide and insurance lawyer, was unlawful. And because she was never properly appointed as the interim United States attorney, the indictments that she purported to obtain were invalid because, given that she wasn't actually properly appointed as interim U.S. attorney,

she was just some woman, some insurance lawyer in a courtroom trying to get indictments, And that's not how this works. So now that there's a question now about what happens with these indictments. The case against Comey has now surpassed the statute of limitations. So is that dead or is there some way they could bring it back to life? So there's a few things that I think make it pretty difficult for the government to bring that particular case back to life. So I guess first let's back up a little and just say the judge dismissed these indictments without prejudice. So what that means is without prejudice to them being refiled.

So the Department of Justice could try to get the indictments again. But you can only do that if the statute of limitations for the crime hasn't expired. And it has in the case of Jim Comey. But, and here's the but, there is a federal law that gives the federal government another six months to extend the statute of limitations if an indictment is dismissed. and that is what kind of eats up the statute of limitations. But, and there's another but, that statute doesn't apply if the indictment itself is a nullity. So there's some possibility. They could try to argue that this statute allows them to refile, but given that the fundamental defect is

the person who sought this indictment wasn't even properly appointed as the interim U.S. attorney, I'm pretty sure that renders the entire indictment annulity. And then there's the second problem. Right. Do you mean the substance of the fact that it's ridiculous? Well, that was kind of related, which is like the reasoning in this opinion means the attorney general and the president can't just appoint whatever hack loyalist they want as the U.S. attorney for this district, given that they already appointed one person as the interim U.S. attorney. So unless they want to go through a Senate confirmation process, it's the courts that will appoint the next U.S. attorney. And those courts probably not going to select some idiot who will allow, you know, these indictments to be obtained for completely specious reasons.

Right. Like someone who's going to go into chat, GPT and say, like, what is the best opening statement I could give to a grand jury? So just so people understand, the actual substantive issue here on the appointment is, the president is allowed to appoint interim attorneys, U.S. attorneys for 120 days at a time. Now, that was to create, to make sure there is someone in the role while a Senate confirmation process can play out. The Trump administration's claim is they can appoint a new temporary attorney every 120 days forever. Now, obviously that is not in the spirit of an interim appointment, but is there any legal defense of what they're saying here? No. I mean, I think this opinion pretty well goes through every part of this statute to explain why the government's interpretation just can't be correct.

Because for a while, the statute actually didn't place a temporal limitation on these interim appointments. And it didn't provide that after the expiration, of this term, courts would appoint, you know, the new interim U.S. attorney. But pretty quickly, Congress realized that's a recipe for just allowing presidents to evade the Senate appointment and confirmation process. And so Congress quickly reamended the law to provide that you can make these appointments for 120 days. And once that happens, then the only way you can then appoint an interim U.S. attorney is to have the courts do it. So there's just so much legislative legislative history, statutory context, the wording of this statute, you know, the judge goes through

and says, look, it's about if, which lays out the sole pathway for this interim appointment to happen. Why would there be a reason to specify that courts make this appointment next if the attorney general can just continue appointing people indefinitely? So there's just a ton of evidence that Trump and Pam Bondi's, you know, interpretation of this law is just not rooted in reality. Like, what does that mean for what happens now? Yeah. So in the case of Tish James, where the statute of limitations might not have expired, you know, they could try to re-obtain an indictment. But that indictment would have to be obtained by someone who is selected as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia by courts.

And given that courts are unlikely to select someone who would seek an indictment based on allegations that have already be debunked. It seems pretty unlikely that this is actually going to result in, you know, another indictment. But the government is certainly going to appeal this. You know, they're going to take this up to the Court of Appeals. It's possible they would take this up to the United States Supreme Court as well. And so that's also going to be playing out. So what is the larger lesson here? There's a story today. Read? Learn how to read. Yeah, right. Learning how to read. really important for U.S. attorneys. But so there was a story out that just broke about the Trump

administration's plans to put together a grand jury in a part of Florida that would allow them to have a Trump prosecutor and a Trump grand jury in front of Eileen Cannon to kind of do this end run around the court system to try to use the Mar-a-Lago case as a ways to get at all their various enemies. They can try all kinds of shenanigans. But are they running up against like, Like, you know, what we used to, I believe it's pronounced check and balances. I'm not sure. I haven't heard it in a while. Something like that.

You know, there are some checks and balances, as you say. But look, I mean, I think we should also recognize the fact that they were even able to obtain these indictments as a real failure of checks and balances and the rule of law. Because under our system, you shouldn't be able to obtain an indictment based on allegations that, don't remotely rise to the level of a crime. And, you know, the flaws that are outlined in this particular opinion don't even come close to exhausting the full comedy of errors that was Lindsay Halligan's performance, you know, in front of the grand jury as part of the efforts to obtain this indictment. So, you know, are they bumping up against checks and balances? Absolutely. But those checks and balances are highly imperfect when you have an executive branch that is

chock full of loyalist hacks who are hell bent on exercising the powers they have to target their enemies, given that the United States Supreme Court told them the president has near plenary power over federal criminal law investigations and prosecutions. And it doesn't matter if those investigations are shams or baseless. So on some level, like, yes, there are checks and balances, but on many others, like, those have broken down and they're only going to be so effective when you select, like, the absolute worst tyrant as, like, the ostensible leader of the free world. What happens to that was beautifully said, by the way, I'm just taking a moment to, you know, hold space for your comments. But Lindsay Halligan, what happens to her now? I mean, in a sense, like,

It's almost like a gift here because this is a person who was so completely in over her head. And now, will they just, does she have to step down because she can't do what Trump needs her to do? So, well, Pamela Joe Bondi attempted to find a way around this by issuing a document on Halloween that purported to appoint Halligan also as a special attorney, not just interim. U.S. attorney and to try to make that appointment retroactive back to September. Now, that wasn't enough to allow her to like retroactively fix the problems with Halligan obtaining these indictments because as the judge observed, like, look, you can't just reach back in time and rewrite the terms of your appointment and insist everything that has happened is just water, you know, under the bridge, but it is possible, right, that this appointment as special attorney could allow Halligan

to do some things going forward. But those powers, right, are probably not, like, the full complement of things that an interim U.S. attorney can do. So I don't know if they are going to try to keep Halligan in this made-up position as special attorney, but the courts have told them in no uncertain terms. Like, this person cannot be interim U.S. attorney. What a twist. So, Leah, before we let you go, any thoughts on, there's been more details coming out about the Travis Taylor wedding,

location, timing. Have you gotten any kind of save the date? Like, do you know what you're going to wear? Like, what's happening here? So, look, I have. I have been signaling tree pain as often as I can. And thus far, my direct messages, my tags, all of that have gone unreturned. I can only assume that's because she's crafting a super special personalized invitation just for me.

You know, in case you didn't know this, I was actually identified by the Wall Street Journal as one of Taylor Swift's top fans based on my position on last year's Spotify Rapp. Wow. So like if anyone deserves this, I do. You might say that there's a blank space and you're hoping that she'll write your name. You might say that. But yeah, so I'm waiting and I will just say I am keeping many dates open. Tree.

And I'll tell you where else there's some blank spaces. On people's YouTube subscriptions, do us a favor. Subscribe to the strict scrutiny YouTube channel where you get all of this incredible expert wisdom from constitutional scholars. But they're, but get this, twist, they're funny. They can read and they're funny. And subscribe to the Pod Save America channel. You're helping us build a, counterweight to right wing news and information and get this in front of more people on YouTube. So thank you very much for subscribing. And thank you to Leah Lipman of strict scrutiny. Really appreciate it. Case dismissed. Comey. James.

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