In September and October 2025, Trump's Justice Department indicted three of his most prominent critics. James Comey was charged with two counts, false statements to Congress and obstruction of a congressional proceeding, over his September 30, 2020 Senate Judiciary testimony. New York Attorney General Letitia James was charged with one count of bank fraud and one count of false statements to a financial institution over a Norfolk house. John Bolton was charged separately in Maryland with 18 counts.
The charges followed a Truth Social post in which Trump pressed Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute these exact people. When the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, would not bring the Comey and James cases, he was replaced with Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience.
On November 24, 2025, Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled that Halligan's appointment was invalid and dismissed the Comey and James indictments. The dismissals were without prejudice, but the statute of limitations on the Comey charges had already expired on September 30, 2025, three days after Halligan was installed.
The James case then failed twice more on its own merits: a grand jury in Norfolk returned a no bill around December 4, 2025, and a second in Alexandria returned another on December 11.
Bolton's case followed a different path. It was never dismissed. On June 26, 2026 he pleaded guilty before Judge Theodore Chuang to a single count of illegal retention of national defense information, agreeing to pay a $2.25 million fine, with the government capped at 60 months. Sentencing is set for October 28, 2026.
The Justice Department appealed the dismissals on December 19, 2025. The Fourth Circuit consolidated the two appeals on January 12, 2026, with argument scheduled for September 2026.