A federal judge on Monday dismissed long-running indictments against James Comey and Letitia James, abruptly ending a case that had become a political flashpoint. In a sharply worded ruling, the judge said prosecutors failed to meet the basic evidentiary standard required to move forward and criticized what he described as “speculative allegations unsupported by admissible facts.”
The decision immediately reverberated through Washington and New York, where the charges had been cited for months by partisan commentators as proof of misconduct at the highest levels of law enforcement. The judge, however, wrote that the filings showed “no coherent theory of criminal liability” and warned that continuing the case would undermine public confidence in the justice system.
Attorneys for both Comey and James said the ruling confirmed what they had argued from the beginning: that the indictments were politically driven and legally hollow.
Comey addressed the dismissal in a video on Instagram:
“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,” he said. “But I was also inspired by the example of the career people who refuse to be part of this travesty. It cost some of them their jobs, which is painful, but it preserved their integrity, which is beyond price.”