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A pair of high-profile critics of former President Trump achieved major court wins on Monday when a federal judge threw out the government's charges filed against them.

For weeks following their charges, ex-FBI chief James Comey and NY AG Letitia James have maintained fiercely that they are innocent, asserting that the administration and DOJ are merely targeting them for revenge.

US District Judge Cameron Currie dismissed the charges in their cases due to attorney Lindsey Halligan's invalid appointment as US attorney. But she also left the door open for the federal authorities to try again.

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Comey admitted that likelihood after the ruling, saying he thinks the former president will probably target him once more.

And White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson appeared to agree: This will not be the last chapter on this issue.

But the government confronts steep hurdles to effectively try both after this defeat, and experts hesitate to forecast what could occur next due to the unprecedented circumstances of the cases.

In my view, it's uncharted territory, stated Professor Kay Levine, law professor at Emory University.

Could the DOJ challenge the ruling?

The Department of Justice can challenge Judge Currie's ruling before a federal appeals court. In this instance, that would be the Fourth Circuit Appeals Court.

Attorney General Pam Bondi signaled she would take this route, vowing to use all legal means, including an immediate appeal.

Previously, the Trump administration has aggressively appealed adverse decisions, moving cases from trial courts and sometimes fast-tracking its requests up to the US Supreme Court.

Attorney Abbe Lowell, James's lawyer, pledged to keep fighting any further politically driven indictments through all legal avenues.

If there is an appeals process, the DOJ likely would have its own lawyers argue the case, making Halligan's role in the appeal uncertain.

Is it possible there be fresh indictments?

The federal prosecutors charged Comey with lying to Congress and obstructing justice. Federal prosecutors indicted Letitia James with bank fraud and making false statements to a bank.

Each entered not guilty pleas. In addition to claiming Halligan was unlawfully appointed, they also claimed to be victims of retaliatory legal action.

Since the initial charges were dismissed (though, of course, appeals could change that), the government might try to assemble new grand juries and obtain new indictments.

Based on my analysis, a different attorney could present James's case to a different grand jury and get a fresh indictment, stated Professor Levine.

But John Day, head of the American College of Trial Lawyers, said it could be a complicated path – certainly in Comey's case.

It's clear that it will be strongly disputed, whether Comey's case can be recharged if a properly assigned attorney is assigned and is can obtain an charge.

He characterized the tangle of attorneys, courts, and legal filings involved as a procedural morass with no simple answers.

It might be harder for the DOJ to try to file the exact same charges against James Comey.

One problem is the legal time limit – the time frame that prosecutors had to indict him for these specific allegations – which expired at the close of September. Nonetheless, the dismissal of the charges would activate a six-month grace period for the justice department to refile the case.

Still in that situation, his legal team said it intends to argue the government is out of time.

The decision further indicates that since the indictment is invalid, the statute of limitations has run and there can be no new indictment, lawyer Patrick Fitzgerald said Monday.

What is the fate of Lindsey Halligan?

In the pair of rulings on the indictments against James and Comey, Judge Currie was direct: Halligan's appointment was improper.

The judge stated in the James ruling that the Attorney General's attempt to install Halligan as Acting US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid.

Therefore, she lacked legal power to file the charges, the judge wrote.

US attorneys are proposed by the president and require US Senate confirmation. Federal statutes govern how people can be appointed on a interim basis, but the judge determined that Halligan's assignment had breached these laws.

That leaves Halligan's role on subsequent cases against James and Comey, once more, unclear.

The ruling also could raise doubts on any other cases Halligan has brought in the Eastern District of Virginia where she works.

But Attorney General Bondi said on Monday that she designated Halligan a special US attorney and commended her work as excellent.

The White House maintained its position that Halligan was lawfully appointed, press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday.