First things first: James Comey and Letitia James are sleazy, scummy, hyperpolitical thugs who disgraced their offices, betrayed the public trust, and flipped their middle fingers to the electoral will of the American people. If you disagree with this assessment, then you’re likely in the throes of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

There. Now that I have that off my chest, let’s proceed.

Yesterday, a Clinton-appointed judge waved her hand and dismissed the Justice Department’s grand jury indictments against both Comey and James on the same debatable technicality — namely, that President Donald Trump’s federal prosecutor in the cases, Lindsay Halligan, wasn’t properly appointed to her post. As Judge Cameron Currie wrote:

I agree with Mr. Comey that the Attorney General’s attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid. And because Ms. Halligan had no lawful authority to present the indictment, I will grant Mr. Comey’s motion and dismiss the indictment without prejudice.

At issue is a legal obscurity called Section 546, which sets the boundaries for interim U.S. attorney appointments by the attorney general. As Ed Morrissey writes at Hot Air, “Today’s dismissals are based on the Trump administration’s failure to get a US Attorney appointed and confirmed in time. They appointed an interim US Attorney early on, but federal law only allows interim appointments to continue for 120 days. After that, the judicial circuit appoints an interim US Attorney, an issue that the White House is already fighting in other jurisdictions. Currie refuses to accept any indictments from a second interim US Attorney appointed by Trump, calling it ‘defective.’”

“Defective,” huh? Where on earth were these high-minded sticklers for judicial process during the past nine years, when the Democrats’ lawfare apparatus was maliciously raking Donald Trump and his supporters through the coals?

“We’ll be taking all available legal action,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi yesterday, “including an immediate appeal, to hold Letitia James and James Comey accountable for their unlawful conduct.” She added, “I’m not worried about someone who has been charged with a very serious crime. His alleged actions were a betrayal of public trust.”

That’s all well and good, Madame AG, but I think it’s safe to say that Comey and James — and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and John Brennan and James Clapper and Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok and Chris Wray and the rest of those weaponizing dirtbags — are laughing their butts off right about now, along with the leftist scribes at The Washington Post.

As our Mark Alexander put it: “This was an incredibly careless way to bring charges, now dismissed on a technicality and likely to be reinstated, and in no way exonerates Comey. Comey is a corrupt thug, and I have heard no bigger lie come out of his mouth in the last decade than this: ‘A message has to be sent that the president of the United States cannot use the Department of Justice to target his political enemies.’”

That’s pretty rich coming from the guy who exonerated Crooked Hillary Clinton for recklessly sending top-secret communications via an unsecure home-brew server. Pretty rich coming from the guy who seven years ago said “I don’t remember” 73 times, “I don’t know” 161 times, and “I don’t recall” eight times during his closed-door testimony before Congress. Pretty rich for the guy who helped weaponize the DOJ to go after Donald Trump and the rest of the Democrats’ political enemies.

To be fair, there’s a Beria-esque “show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” component to Tish James’s bank fraud case. But a crime is a crime, right? And as for Comey: a former FBI director lying before Congress? I mean, we all knew he was lying when he was doing it.

Further complicating the cases against Comey and James — and the lying senator from California, Adam Schiff — is the president’s plain-as-day animus toward the Democrats who were trying to ruin his life. It goes to the charge of retributive justice, which was the second argument that Comey and James made, and it’s embodied in a Truth Social post that Trump directed toward Attorney General Pam Bondi — a post that he subsequently yanked down, no doubt on the advice of his legal team:

Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, “same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam "Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.“ Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job. That’s why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case. No, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many lawyers, and legal pundits, say so. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot. We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT

These are strong, hard-nosed, prejudicial opinions that a regular schlub like me can rightly and publicly express, but they tend to complicate legal cases when they’re uttered by the leader of our nation’s executive branch, by the man to whom our nation’s attorney general answers.

One of Donald Trump’s most appealing traits is his candor, his straight talk, his willingness to say precisely what’s on his mind. He’s taken a blowtorch to the mealy-mouthed way that business is conducted in our nation’s capital, and we should all be thankful for it.

Unfortunately, as it pertains to these two criminal cases, the president’s straight talk appears to be a pre-holiday gift to a pair of sleazy Trump-deranged hacks who sure seem to be "guilty as hell.”