By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday said her legal team plans to ask a federal judge to dismiss the criminal charges against her on the grounds that the U.S. Attorney in Eastern Virginia who obtained the indictment was unlawfully appointed, according to a court filing.
James’ legal team made the move the day before James is scheduled to be arraigned in the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, where she is expected to plead not guilty to one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution.
Lindsey Halligan was appointed by President Donald Trump last month as U.S. Attorney for Virginia’s Eastern District, after her predecessor was forced out of his job after he expressed concerns with the strength of the evidence against both James and former FBI Director James Comey.
Comey has also since been indicted in the same district on charges of obstructing Congress and making a false statement.
Trump has promised to seek retribution against people he alleges used the justice system against him in an effort to prevent him from returning to power, including Comey and James.
Halligan previously worked as Trump’s personal lawyer and has no prosecutorial experience. She obtained the indictments against Comey and James on her own, without any assistance from other career prosecutors in the office.
Comey is also in the process of challenging Halligan’s appointment as interim U.S. attorney. Oral arguments on that case are already scheduled for November 13 in South Carolina.
That challenge is being heard outside Virginia to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.
The James and Comey challenges could be consolidated, as has happened in other districts where criminal defendants have challenged the appointments of other U.S. attorneys in New Jersey and Nevada.
James’ attorneys on Thursday separately asked the court to enforce its rules prohibiting prosecutors in the case from making extrajudicial statements. The motion comes after a reporter for Lawfare reported that Halligan had reached out to her on the encrypted messaging application Signal to complain about social media posts the reporter made about the James case.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Leslie Adler and Bill Berkrot)
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