A federal judge on Monday dismissed the prosecutions that President Donald Trump orchestrated against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James – a major early setback to his retribution campaign against his political foes.

US District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled that the cases were invalid because the prosecutor who brought the charges, interim US attorney Lindsey Halligan, had been unlawfully appointed.

The rulings bolster criticisms of how hastily the prosecutions were brought.

Halligan was installed and brought the cases after Trump forced out the existing US attorney who resisted bringing the cases and pleaded with Attorney General Pam Bondi to make them happen.

The opinions are subject to appeal. But for now, they close the first two major cases Trump orchestrated against his foes. And it could recast Trump’s fraught effort to exact retribution on his foes.

Trump’s role in pushing these prosecutions has no modern equivalent.

Here are the key takeaways from the rulings:

An embarrassing setback for Trump’s retribution campaign

The pervading picture of Trump’s retribution campaign has been that he just wants his foes indicted, and he doesn’t really care how or what for.

But as I wrote early on, that was a recipe for hastily orchestrated indictments that might ultimately backfire politically – by falling apart in ways that reinforce just how desperate and politicized they were.

These ones are clearly at risk of backfiring.

We already knew that Trump played an extraordinary role in making these cases happen. Now a judge has ruled that Trump and Bondi basically had to illegally try to install a replacement interim US attorney to get someone to pursue these cases.