A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

In a remarkable filing in both the Jim Comey and Letitia James cases, Attorney General Pam Bondi submitted a document she signed on Halloween — more than a month after Comey’s indictment — declaring that she was retroactively ratifying everything that interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan had done to secure the two indictments.

The Bondi filing came in the Trump administration’s response to motions from Comey and James to dismiss their indictments on the grounds that Halligan was unlawfully appointed as U.S. attorney.

Bondi took a belt-and-suspenders approach, claiming she validly appointed Halligan as interim U.S. attorney on Sept. 22 but also purporting to give new and additional authority to Halligan: “For the avoidance of doubt as to the validity of that appointment … I hereby appoint Ms. Halligan to the additional position of Special Attorney” retroactive to the same date.

Not much doubt was avoided. In fact, it was amplified.

The fact that Bondi felt the need to do any after-the-fact cleanup of Halligan’s appointment tended to undermine the rest of the Trump DOJ brief, which attempted to argue that Halligan is a perfectly valid U.S. attorney.

All the magic-wand waving and retroactive appointments seem like a huge concession, perhaps forced by federal judges in New Jersey, Nevada, and California already having found fault with the appointments of other Trump U.S. attorneys under less unusual circumstances than Halligan’s.

In a weird new filing, the Trump Justice Department defended against former FBI Director Jim Comey’s claims of vindictive and selective prosecution by dumping into the court record a bunch of tenuously-related private emails between Comey and Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman.

The NYT put it deftly: “The evidence was included in a 48-page filing that appeared to be an effort to construct a narrative that Mr. Comey had leaked information to the news media without actually tying such assertions to the allegations made in the indictment brought against him.”

At times, the filing reads like its target audience is not the judge but the man occupying the Oval Office.