“The record as it currently exists shows a clear causal link between President Trump’s animus and the prosecution of Mr. Comey,” the filing states. “President Trump’s repeated public statements and action leave no doubt as to the government’s genuine animus toward Mr. Comey.”

Days before a grand jury handed up his indictment, Trump had publicly posted that “time is running out” for Bondi to charge Comey, a message administration officials later told the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 10 was intended as a private direct message to the attorney general. Comey’s attorneys say that episode cements the link between Trump’s personal pressure campaign and the Justice Department’s decision to indict.

Comey was indicted on Sept. 25 on one count of making a false statement and one count of obstructing a congressional proceeding, stemming from his 2020 Senate Judiciary Committee testimony in which he denied authorizing leaks about Trump. He has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing on Oct. 8.

The charges followed months of internal resistance by career Justice Department prosecutors who had concluded no case was warranted. Days before the five-year statute of limitations expired to bring charges, Trump removed U.S. Attorney Erik Siebert and appointed Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide and Trump lawyer with no prosecutorial experience, to lead the Eastern District of Virginia. Halligan signed the Comey indictment herself just four days after taking office.

Comey’s defense added that Trump celebrated the indictment the next day and thanked Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel for their “brilliant work,” evidence they say shows direct White House coordination in what should be an independent charging decision. The filing compares the move to cases where courts dismissed indictments brought by officials serving in violation of the Appointments Clause.

“The United States cannot charge, maintain, and prosecute a case through an official who has no entitlement to exercise governmental authority,” the motion stated. “Because no properly appointed executive branch official sought and obtained this indictment, it is a nullity.”

In order to establish prosecutorial “vindictiveness,” Comey must prove to the court that prosecutors were both acting with genuine animus toward the defendant, and that the defendant would not have been prosecuted “but for that animus.”

A second motion filed Monday sought to disqualify Halligan and invalidate every action taken under her tenure, arguing that her interim appointment violated the appointments clause and 28 U.S.C. § 546. Comey’s lawyers argued the statute allows the attorney general to install a temporary U.S. attorney for only 120 days, stating that after that period, judges of the district court must make any further appointment. They argue that Halligan’s selection came months after that window expired, rendering her a “private citizen without lawful authority to secure an indictment.”

The motion cited a 1986 Office of Legal Counsel opinion written by then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General Samuel Alito and a string of recent cases in New Jersey and Nevada where courts rejected similar back-to-back interim appointments. It urges the court to dismiss the indictment “with prejudice to deter the government’s willfully unlawful conduct.”

Trump has railed against a long-standing tradition in the Senate Judiciary Committee known as the “blue-slip” process, which is not a requirement, but insists that two U.S. senators must approve U.S. attorney nominees in order for their nomination to move forward to a full Senate vote. The tradition has become an onerous process for presidents of either party seeking to fill prosecutorial vacancies, and Trump has publicly called on Republican leadership to do away with the tradition in order to reduce his logjam of nominees.

In a post to Truth Social last week, Trump attacked the tradition, saying he has eight “highly respected” U.S. attorney nominees who will not be confirmed because “they’re Republicans.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has defended blue slips in recent months, posting to X in August that the tradition “kept 30 LIBERALS OFF BENCH THAT PRES TRUMP CAN FILL W CONSERVATIVES.”

COMEY HIRED POSSIBLE WITNESS AS HIS LAWYER TO BLOCK TESTIMONY, DOJ SAYS

U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff, a Biden appointee overseeing the case, has not yet set a hearing on either motion.

If even one of Comey’s motions is granted, the result could erase or significantly endanger one of the most high-profile criminal cases of the second Trump administration so far, as respective indictments press ahead for Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton and New York Attorney General Letitia James.