A recent conservative media segment dove into a complicated and emotionally charged topic: whether a federal judge was right to invalidate an interim U.S. attorney’s appointment and dismiss indictments that guests claimed had been brought against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The discussion blended sharp legal arguments, institutional frustration, and partisan suspicion into one long exchange. It’s important to underline from the start: the claims of “overwhelming evidence” and the description of specific criminal charges in that conversation reflect the views and allegations of the commentators, not established findings in court. Public records do not show any such completed prosecutions.

What is very real, however, is the legal question they spent most of the segment grappling with: who has the power to appoint interim U.S. attorneys, and for how long, under federal law? That technical issue is what triggered the judge’s ruling—and why the guests insist the case is far from over.

The Heart of the Dispute: Who Gets to Appoint an Interim U.S. Attorney?

At the center of this saga is 28 U.S.C. § 546, the federal statute that governs how vacancies in U.S. attorney positions are filled.

In the segment, the host and her guests walked through the sequence like this:

The Attorney General may appoint a temporary U.S. attorney for up to 120 days when a post is vacant.

If, after that period, the vacancy remains and no Senate-confirmed replacement has been installed, the district court “may appoint” someone to serve until the position is filled in the usual way (presidential nomination and Senate confirmation).

What happens after that is where the fight begins.

According to the guests, the timeline in the case they were discussing went something like this:

An initial interim U.S. attorney was appointed by the Attorney General.

After 120 days, the district judges for that federal district extended that person’s service under the statute.

Later, that U.S. attorney resigned or was removed.

The Attorney General then appointed a new interim U.S. attorney—Lindsey Halligan—who, according to the segment, sought and obtained indictments from a grand jury.

The defense teams for Comey and James (as described by the commentators) challenged that last step. Their argument: once the 120-day window had passed and the judges had exercised their appointment power, only the court could make any further interim appointments. In their view, the Attorney General could not “reclaim” that authority and install another acting U.S. attorney on her own.

That is the argument Judge Curry adopted—at least as presented by the show—when she ruled that Halligan’s appointment was invalid and the indictments must be dismissed.

Exclusive vs. Concurrent Power: One Phrase, Two Readings

The entire legal tug-of-war revolves around how to read a few key lines in the statute.

The law says:

The Attorney General may appoint an interim U.S. attorney when the office is vacant.

If that appointment expires, the district court may appoint a U.S. attorney to serve until the vacancy is filled.

The host and one of her guests, reading that language, argued that:

The Attorney General’s authority remains unless a specific exception applies (for example, if the Senate has already rejected that individual).

The phrase saying the court “may appoint” someone after an appointment expires does not say that only the court may appoint. It creates an option, not an exclusive monopoly.

In their view, the statute should be read as concurrent authority: both the Executive Branch and the judiciary may fill the gap; the President can still nominate a permanent U.S. attorney at any time, and the Attorney General can still make an interim appointment, as long as no explicit bar exists.

Judge Curry, by contrast, interpreted the law as creating a sequence rather than a shared power:

First 120 days – Attorney General may appoint.

After that window closes – the appointment authority shifts to the district court.

According to the segment, the judge’s opinion effectively reads the statute as saying that once the court steps in, only the court can keep filling the vacancy on an interim basis unless and until a Senate-confirmed U.S. attorney takes over. That’s why she treated Halligan’s appointment—made by the Attorney General after a judge-appointed interim—as invalid.

Separation of Powers vs. Statutory Limits

The guests argued that Judge Curry’s reading raises serious constitutional and structural concerns. They framed the problem like this:

The Constitution’s Appointments Clause envisions that U.S. attorneys are part of the Executive Branch, nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

Interim appointment statutes are designed as a temporary patch, not a permanent transfer of authority.

If judges can effectively control the position indefinitely by blocking or displacing Attorney General appointments, that arguably shifts long-term control of an executive office into judicial hands.

From their perspective, that would:

Undermine the Executive’s ability to staff critical law-enforcement roles, and

Create a system in which courts, not elected officials, effectively decide who prosecutes federal crimes in that district for months or years at a time.

The counter-argument, echoed in their own discussion, is that Congress amended this statute in 2007 precisely to limit executive power after political controversy over U.S. attorney removals in the mid-2000s. The aim, supporters say, was to prevent an Attorney General from cycling through one unconfirmed interim appointee after another and bypassing the Senate indefinitely.

In other words, the law exists to ensure that temporary appointments stay temporary—and that the system cannot be used as a workaround to avoid the usual confirmation process.

What Happens to the Case If the Appointment Was Invalid?

Once Judge Curry ruled that Halligan was not properly serving as U.S. attorney, the consequences for the underlying prosecutions became complicated.

The segment described it this way:

If the person signing the indictment lacked legal authority to do so, the indictment is void “from the beginning” — a concept sometimes referred to by the Latin label void ab initio.

In that scenario, it is as if the indictment was never filed.

That distinction matters because of statutes of limitations.

According to the commentary:

For Letitia James, the time limits for the alleged offense might still allow a new indictment by a properly appointed prosecutor.

For James Comey, the segment claimed that the statute of limitations expired only days after the original indictment was returned. If that original charging document is treated as legally nonexistent, there is no “saving” indictment to toll the clock.

Under those conditions, the defense would argue that:

The indictment was never valid.

The time to bring charges has now expired.

Any attempt to reindict would be out of time.

Whether courts would accept that argument depends on how they categorize the defect—procedural vs. jurisdictional, curable vs. incurable—but the show’s guests clearly believe Judge Curry’s phrasing was designed to make reindictment as difficult as possible.

The Appeal: A Fight Over Statutory Meaning, Not Just Politics

Both guests predicted the issue will be appealed, possibly all the way to the Supreme Court.

They framed the appellate question this way:

Does § 546 give the district court the exclusive power to appoint interim U.S. attorneys after the first 120 days, or does it create a parallel option that coexists with the Attorney General’s appointment power and the President’s nomination power?

If higher courts adopt Judge Curry’s reading, the ruling would stand as a precedent limiting how often the Executive Branch can install interim prosecutors after that initial 120-day period elapses.

If appellate courts reject that reading, they may:

Restore the indictment, or

Uphold the dismissal but allow a properly appointed U.S. attorney to refile charges, depending on how they interpret the limitation periods and the procedural posture.

Either way, the case is likely to become another flashpoint in the broader debate about how much flexibility the Executive should have when it comes to filling key law-enforcement posts, especially in a polarized environment where every appointment is scrutinized for political implications.

Beyond This Case: Why This Fight Matters

While much of the segment focused on personalities and alleged misconduct, the underlying legal battle is about something more structural: how far Congress can go in constraining the Executive’s ability to appoint prosecutors, and how courts should interpret those constraints.

Key questions raised include:

How should interim appointment statutes be read when they intersect with the Constitution’s Appointments Clause?

To what extent should courts avoid interpretations that risk shifting long-term executive power into judicial hands?

When, if ever, does a defect in an appointment completely erase criminal charges rather than simply require a procedural fix?

The media conversation you provided used sharply partisan language and strong claims about specific individuals. But stripped down to its legal core, the controversy highlights a recurring theme in American governance:

When politics and law enforcement intersect, who ultimately controls the levers of prosecutorial power—elected executive officials, the Senate that confirms them, or the judges who interpret the statutes that bind them?

That is the real question sitting beneath the headlines.

And whatever happens to this particular case on appeal, that question will not be going away any time soon.