DOJ Cases Against Trump Critics Keep Collapsing

SITUATION:

Since President Donald Trump returned to office, the Justice Department has opened criminal investigations or secured indictments against a string of his political critics, including a former FBI director, a former CIA director, a sitting U.S. senator and a New York statewide official.

Trump has publicly named several of these individuals and called for their prosecution, sometimes before any charges existed. The Justice Department under Attorney General Pam Bondi, and later Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, pursued the cases through newly installed U.S. attorneys and special prosecutors.

Several of the highest-profile cases have since fallen apart, either dismissed by judges, rejected by grand juries or stalled for lack of evidence. A separate wave of prosecutions tied to immigration enforcement has followed a similar pattern on a larger scale.

THE TRUTH:

A Reuters review found that of at least 851 people charged with assaulting or impeding federal officers between January 2025 and March 2026, 31% of completed cases ended in dismissal. That compares to roughly 8% of federal cases generally.

Cases tied to immigration protests fared worse still. About 45% of 86 completed cases were dropped by the end of May, according to the same review. The pattern also shows up in several of the administration’s highest-profile targets.

Comey and James: Twin Indictments, Twin Dismissals

Former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) were both indicted in the fall of 2025. The prosecutor in both cases was Lindsey Halligan, a former personal attorney for Trump.

Bondi installed Halligan as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after Trump publicly pushed out her predecessor. Comey was indicted Sept. 25, 2025, on charges of making a false statement to Congress and obstruction.

James was indicted Oct. 9, 2025, on bank fraud and false-statement charges tied to a home mortgage. Both pleaded not guilty and moved to dismiss their cases as vindictive prosecutions.

On Nov. 24, 2025, U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie threw out both indictments. She ruled Halligan’s appointment was unlawful because it came after the 120-day window for an interim U.S. attorney to serve without Senate confirmation had already expired under her predecessor.

“All actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment,” Currie wrote, “constitute unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside.” She warned that the government’s position would let officials “evade the Senate confirmation process indefinitely.”

James: Two More Grand Juries Say No

The Justice Department did not let the matter rest with James. On Dec. 4, 2025, a federal grand jury in Norfolk declined to return an indictment against her, a rare outcome known as a “no true bill.”

One week later, a second grand jury in Alexandria also declined to indict James, this time on the original charges plus a proposed third felony count. Court filings show 12 or more grand jurors voted against every charge presented.

It was the third time in two months that prosecutors had failed to secure charges against James that would stick. Comey’s case took a different path.

Comey: A Second Indictment Over Seashells

Because the statute of limitations had run out on the original congressional-testimony charges, the department could not simply refile them. Instead, on April 28, 2026, a grand jury in North Carolina indicted Comey on a new charge: threatening the president.

The indictment centered on a since-deleted Instagram post from May 2025 showing seashells arranged to spell “86 47.” Prosecutors argued a reasonable person would read it as a threat, since “86” can mean to get rid of something and Trump is the 47th president.

Comey’s attorneys have moved to dismiss the case. They argue the phrase is a widely understood expression of political opposition protected by the First Amendment, and note dictionary definitions rarely include “kill” among the common meanings of “86.”

A separate filing alleges the Secret Service conducted warrantless surveillance of Comey the same day Trump publicly called the post a threat of “assassination.” Comey’s arraignment is scheduled for Sept. 30, 2026.

The Exception: John Bolton

Not every case tied to the administration’s list of perceived opponents has fallen apart. John Bolton, Trump’s own former national security adviser and a vocal critic since leaving that post, is a clear exception.

Bolton was indicted in October 2025 on 18 counts of unlawfully transmitting and retaining classified information, tied to diary-like notes he allegedly shared with two relatives. On June 26, 2026, he pleaded guilty to one count of unlawfully retaining national defense information.

“I am sorry for it,” Bolton told the court as part of his plea agreement. His case remains, so far, the one prosecution in this category to hold up under scrutiny.

Adam Schiff: A Stalled Investigation

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has faced a mortgage-fraud investigation since mid-2025, after the Federal Housing Finance Agency referred allegations that he misrepresented a Maryland home as his primary residence to obtain favorable loan terms.

By October 2025, four people familiar with the matter told NBC News that federal prosecutors in Maryland had not developed enough evidence to bring charges and that the probe had stalled. No charges against Schiff have been filed since.

The following month, a separate grand jury began examining the handling of the Schiff investigation itself. That inquiry looked at whether people falsely claimed to be acting on behalf of Justice Department officials while pursuing the case.

John Brennan: A Prosecutor Swapped Out

Former CIA Director John Brennan has been under investigation since August 2025 over testimony he gave Congress in 2023 about the intelligence community’s 2016 Russia assessment, following a referral from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH).

By April 2026, the Justice Department had removed the lead prosecutor on Brennan’s case after she declined to bring charges as quickly as the department wanted, CBS News reported. No charges have been filed against Brennan.

CBS also reported that some agents assigned to the case had worked on other high-profile prosecutions of Trump critics, and that one had lobbied senators to confirm FBI Director Kash Patel. Brennan disputes the underlying allegations entirely.

On July 1, 2026, Brennan sued the administration, asking a federal judge to order the preservation of records tied to the investigation. His filing argued the government was engaged in “demonstrably irregular prosecutorial activity in order to gin up a case.”

David Hearn and the Reflecting Pool

The most recent example came out of Washington. Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted in early July 2026 on a felony destruction-of-property charge, accused of tearing up part of the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said at the time that Hearn had “forcefully and violently” ripped up the pool’s lining with his bare hands. He faced up to 10 years in prison.

On Aug. 1, 2026, Pirro’s office moved to dismiss the case. Prosecutors said in a 20-page filing that the Interior Department had withheld evidence, turning it over only after the indictment.

That evidence showed the pool’s damage was caused by “flawed installation by the contractor” and a rushed timeline tied to America’s 250th-anniversary celebrations. A visual inspection also found damage in the middle of the pool, where a vandal would have had no reason to go.

The filing concluded it was now “difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.” A judge granted the dismissal the same day.

Trump publicly disagreed with his own Justice Department’s decision. He wrote on social media that there “may have been some contractor difficulty,” but insisted vandals caused “the major damage.”

WHY IT MATTERS:

None of this means every person on this list is innocent of everything ever alleged against them. The Bolton case shows the department can still make a charge stick when the facts support it, which demonstrates why the pattern in the other cases matters.

A justice system that brings charges before the evidence is fully assembled, then walks them back after arrests and headlines have already done their damage, imposes real costs regardless of the final outcome. Reputations do not fully recover just because a case gets dismissed.

Career prosecutors who declined to move as fast as political leadership wanted were replaced in more than one of these cases. Pirro may now face the same dynamic in reverse.

CNN reported Aug. 3, 2026, that Trump is weighing her removal after her office dropped the Hearn case. A senior administration official told the network the president was “blindsided,” and another source called her removal “highly likely.” That points to a process problem bigger than any single name here.

Conservatives have spent decades warning that unaccountable government power, once normalized against one target, rarely stays contained to that target. A department willing to stack short-term appointments to sidestep Senate confirmation is exercising exactly the kind of expansive executive authority conservative legal thought has traditionally distrusted.

That distrust does not depend on who currently occupies the White House. The same legal reasoning that invalidated Halligan’s appointment would apply with equal force to a future administration installing its own loyalists through the same shortcut.

The volume of collapsed cases carries a practical cost as well. Taxpayer resources fund these investigations from the grand jury stage forward, whether or not a charge ever survives contact with a judge or a jury of ordinary citizens.

The department has also lost significant institutional experience. NOTUS reported that the Public Integrity Section, which once had 36 attorneys prosecuting corrupt officials full time, was down to two by September 2025, with most of the rest quitting under pressure or reassigned elsewhere.

A 31% dismissal rate on federal assault charges, nearly four times the historical norm, suggests a department moving faster than its evidence can support. That is a resource and accountability question that stands apart from any individual defendant’s politics or popularity.

SOURCES:

• NBC News, “Judge dismisses cases against James Comey and Letitia James after finding prosecutor was unlawfully appointed,” Nov. 24, 2025: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/judge-dismisses-cases-james-comey-letitia-james-finding-prosecutor-was-rcna244775
• CNN, “Federal judge dismisses indictments against Letitia James and James Comey,” Nov. 24, 2025: https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/24/politics/james-comey-letitia-james-indictments-dismissed
• CBS News, “Judge dismisses James Comey and Letitia James cases, finding prosecutor’s appointment invalid,” Nov. 25, 2025: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/james-comey-case-dismissed-judge-lindsey-halligan/
• The Hill, “DOJ tried, failed to add third felony charge against Letitia James: Court documents,” Dec. 23, 2025: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5656649-doj-letitia-james-felony-charge-doj/
• NBC News, “Justice Department again fails to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James,” Dec. 11, 2025: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/justice-department-fails-third-attempt-indict-new-york-attorney-genera-rcna248282
• NBC News, “James Comey indicted over seashell photo that officials say threatened Trump,” April 29, 2026: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/james-comey-indicted-seashell-photo-officials-said-threatened-trump-rcna247022
• CNN, “James Comey asks judge to drop case over ’86 47′ seashell post,” July 27, 2026: https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/27/politics/james-comey-trump-threat
• CNBC, “Comey seeks dismissal of Trump 8647 threat case,” July 29, 2026: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/29/james-comey-trump-8647-seashells-threat-secret-service.html
• ABC News, “John Bolton pleads guilty to 1 count of mishandling classified information,” June 26, 2026: https://abcnews.com/US/john-bolton-expected-plead-guilty-mishandling-classified-information/story?id=134224305
• NPR, “John Bolton, former Trump national security adviser, pleads guilty in classified documents case,” June 26, 2026: https://www.npr.org/2026/06/26/nx-s1-5871292/john-bolton-national-security-classified-documents
• NBC News, “The Adam Schiff criminal probe has stalled, sources say,” Oct. 24, 2025: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/adam-schiff-criminal-probe-stalled-sources-say-rcna239375
• The Hill, “DOJ probes mortgage fraud investigation into Adam Schiff,” Nov. 20, 2025: https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5616192-justice-department-probe-schiff-mortgage-investigation/
• CBS News, “DOJ veterans fear criminal probe into ex-CIA Director John Brennan is being stacked with Trump loyalists,” May 21, 2026: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/doj-veterans-cia-john-brennan-criminal-probe-trump-loyalists/
• CNN, “Trump foe John Brennan sues administration demanding investigative records into him be preserved,” July 1, 2026: https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/01/politics/trump-foe-john-brennan-sues-administration-records
• ABC News, “DOJ dropping Reflecting Pool vandalism case against Olympian David Hearn, citing ‘flawed’ work by contractor,” Aug. 1, 2026: https://abcnews.com/Politics/doj-moves-dismiss-reflecting-pool-case-olympian-citing/story?id=135274977
• NPR, “Reflecting pool vandalism charges dropped against Hearn, others,” Aug. 3, 2026: https://www.npr.org/2026/08/03/nx-s1-5918001/reflecting-pool-vandalism-charges-dropped
• Reuters (via Jefferson City News-Tribune), “Trump’s DOJ charged hundreds with assaulting officers. Many cases were dropped, but the damage was done,” July 31, 2026: https://www.newstribune.com/news/2026/jul/31/trumps-doj-charged-hundreds-with-assaulting/
• CNN, “Furious Trump considers removing Jeanine Pirro over Reflecting Pool filing, sources say,” Aug. 3, 2026: https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/03/politics/jeanine-pirro-removal-reflecting-pool
• NOTUS, “The Justice Department Had 36 Lawyers Fighting Corruption Full-Time. Under Trump, It’s Down to Two,” Sept. 22, 2025: https://www.notus.org/courts/doj-public-integrity