A judge has dismissed criminal cases against Donald Trump critics James Comey and Letitia James after finding that the prosecutor was illegally appointed.

Mr Comey is the former FBI director and Ms James is New York attorney general.

In his ruling, Judge Cameron Currie said: “All actions flowing from Ms. [Lindsey] Halligan’s defective appointment, including securing and signing Mr Comey’s indictment, were unlawful exercises of executive power and are hereby set aside.

“The Attorney General’s attempts to ratify Ms. Halligan’s actions were ineffective and are hereby set aside.”

The orders make Lindsey Halligan the latest Trump administration prosecutor to be disqualified because of the manner in which they were appointed.

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The US secretary of state has hailed a “tremendous amount of progress” on peace talks after the US and Ukraine delegations met in Geneva – but said that negotiators would “need more time”.

Marco Rubio said the meetings in Switzerland on Sunday have been “the most productive and meaningful” of the peace process so far.

He said the US was making “some changes” to the peace plan, seemingly based on Ukrainian suggestions, “in the hopes of further narrowing the differences and getting closer to something that both Ukraine and obviously the United States are very comfortable with”.

Mr Rubio struck an optimistic tone talking to the media after discussions but was light on the details, saying there was still work to be done.

“I don’t want to declare victory or finality here. There’s still some work to be done, but we are much further ahead today at this time than we were when we began this morning and where we were a week ago for certain,” Mr Rubio said.

He also stressed: “We just need more time than what we have today. I honestly believe we’ll get there.”

Sky News’ defence analyst Michael Clarke said on the initial US-Russian 28-point peace plan that it was Donald Trump against the world, with maybe only Moscow on his side.

Mr Rubio praised the Ukrainian attitude towards the talks and said Mr Trump was “quite pleased” after he previously said in a social media post that Ukraine’s leaders had expressed “ZERO GRATITUDE” for US efforts.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Sunday that there are signs that “President Trump’s team hears us”.

In a news release on Sunday evening, the White House said the day “marked a significant step forward”.

“Ukrainian representatives stated that, based on the revisions and clarifications presented today, they believe the current draft reflects their national interests and provides credible and enforceable mechanisms to safeguard Ukraine’s security in both the near and long term,” it claimed.

Despite diplomatic progress in Geneva the finish line remains a long way off

John Sparks

International correspondent

@sparkomat

We’ve witnessed a day of determined and decidedly frantic diplomacy in this well-heeled city.

Camera crews were perched on street corners and long convoys of black vehicles swept down Geneva’s throughfares as the Ukrainians worked hard to keep the Americans on side.

Secretary of state Marco Rubio did not want to go into details at a press “gaggle” held at the US Mission this evening, but he seemed to think they had made more progress in the last 96 hours than the previous 10 months combined.

The Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy also seemed satisfied enough, posting on Telegram that there were “signals President Trump’s team is hearing us” after a day of “numerous meetings and negotiations”.

That said, we are a long way from the finish line here – something Rubio acknowledged when he said that any proposal agreed here would have to be handed over to the Russians.

At that point, negotiations to stop the war would surely get tougher.

President Putin has shown little or no inclination to stop the conflict thus far.

This, then, is the most important reason the Ukrainians seem determined to keep the Americans on side.

European leaders have presented a counter proposal to the widely criticised US-Russian peace plan, with suggestions including a cap on Ukraine’s peacetime army and readmitting Moscow into the G8.

This will only take place if the plan is agreed to by the US, Russia and Ukraine, and the G7 signs off on the move. Russia was expelled after annexing Crimea in 2014.

The counter proposal also includes US guarantees to Ukraine that mirror NATO’s Article 5 – the idea that “an armed attack against one NATO member shall be considered an attack against them all”.

Read more:
Who actually wrote US-Russian peace plan for Ukraine?
In full: Europe’s 28-point counter proposal to US-Russia plan

The initial peace plan was worked up by the White House and Kremlin without Ukraine’s involvement, and it acquiesces to many of Russia’s previous demands.

It covers a range of issues – from territorial concessions to reconstruction programmes, the future Ukrainian relationship with NATO and the EU, and educational reforms in both Ukraine and Russia.

US and Ukrainian officials are set to meet again today to continue work on the proposal.

It has also been reported that President Zelenskyy could travel to the US as early as this week to discuss the most sensitive aspects of the plan with President Trump.

Questions are being raised about the Russia-Ukraine peace plan, after US politicians suggested the proposal’s 28 points did not originate from Donald Trump’s administration but were put forward by Moscow.

Senators, critical of the US president’s approach to Ukraine, said they spoke with the US secretary of state Marco Rubio, who told them the plan is a “wish list” from the Russians and not a proposal offering Washington’s positions.

Ukraine war latest: Washington denies backing ‘Moscow wish list’

The US state department has called that account “blatantly false”, with Mr Rubio saying that the senators were mistaken and that Washington was responsible for the proposals.

The 28-point plan has surprised many for being so favourable to Moscow.

Explained: Trump’s peace plan in full

Republican senator Mike Rounds is among those who have claimed the plan was not drafted by Washington.

“This administration was not responsible for this release in its current form,” he said at a security conference in Canada. “They want to utilise it as a starting point.”

Mr Rounds added: “It looked more like it was written in Russian to begin with.”

Independent senator Angus King said Mr Rubio told them the plan “was not the administration’s plan” but a “essentially the wish list of the Russians”.

The senators said they spoke to Mr Rubio after he contacted them while on his way to Geneva for talks on the plan.

According to the Reuters news agency, some US officials also said the plan contains material that the US secretary of state has previously rejected and neither he, nor anyone in the state department, was aware of the plan before it was announced.

These latest claims have added to growing confusion over who was involved in drawing up the 28 points.

European leader asks: ‘Who authored the plan?’

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk has raised concerns about its origins. On Sunday, he wrote on X: “It would be good to know for sure who is the author of the plan and where was it created.”

In a post on X, Mr Rubio insisted that “the peace proposal was authored by the US… but it is also based on previous and ongoing input from Ukraine”.

A former adviser to Vladimir Putin had denied that Russia was behind the peace plan. Sergei Markov told Sky News “it is American” and the points were a “very good basis for diplomatic negotiation”.

Mr Markov insisted there were “some positive moods in Russia about it” but also accused Europe and Ukraine of wanting to continue the war, despite Russia unilaterally launching and pursuing a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Read more from Sky News:
Peace plan scrutinised at G20
Ukraine issued with ‘surrender ultimatum’
Ukraine and Europe cannot reject plan

American special envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met Kirill Dmitriev in Miami at the end of October to work on the proposals, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

Mr Dmitriev, who is a close ally of the Russian president, was blacklisted by the US government in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Trump rows back on demands

The US president initially demanded that Ukraine accept the peace plan by Thursday. But he has since rowed back from that position, instead saying the proposal was not his final offer.

The plan currently on the table calls for major concessions by Kyiv, including ceding territory to Russia, pledging not to join NATO and abandoning certain weaponry.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has not rejected the proposals outright, but said he would not betray Ukraine’s interests. Meanwhile, Mr Putin has described the plan as the basis of a resolution to the conflict.

Separately, Senator Roger Wicker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been equally dismissive of the proposals.

“This so-called ‘peace plan’ has real problems, and I am highly sceptical it will achieve peace,” he said.