Trump Lawyer’s Bold Strategy Against Comey and Letitia James May Backfire

The legal world is abuzz as a state bar organization launches an inquiry into Lindsey Halligan’s brief but high-profile role claiming to be Virginia’s lead federal prosecutor. This scrutinous examination could potentially lead to significant repercussions regarding her handling of cases against rivals of former President Donald Trump.

In September, as Trump clashed with seasoned prosecutors from Virginia’s Eastern District over indicting former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, he took to Truth Social. Addressing “Pam”—Attorney General Pam Bondi—he praised Halligan as a “really good lawyer [who] likes you, a lot.”

Trump was adamant, stating, “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!!!”

Despite being an insurance lawyer without a prosecutorial background, Halligan’s tenure as a special assistant in the White House and her role in defending Trump during the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, which was eventually dismissed, elevated her profile significantly.

With career prosecutors hesitant, Bondi appointed Halligan, who quickly took charge. She presented the cases against Comey and James to the grand jury and was the sole signatory on the indictments, navigating the high-stakes legal landscape with assertiveness.

While the two cases were dogged from the start by defense claims of vindictive or selective prosecution and grand jury and Fourth Amendment abuses, the criminal actions did not get close to putting the merits of the Trump administration’s allegations before a jury.

Halligan’s decisions to argue with a reporter on Signal about the evidence against AG James and to pick a fight with the judge for calling her a “puppet” — when he didn’t actually do so — weren’t helpful to her cause either.

In November, Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie found that Bondi unlawfully appointed Halligan as interim U.S. attorney and then failed to retroactively cure that defect on Halloween by adding on a supervisory special attorney title.

It meant that the Comey and James prosecutions were dismissed, an outcome that the DOJ continues to appeal to this day — even though Halligan is no longer in the picture.

The situation came to a head in January, when a Trump-appointed judge in Virginia demanded answers as to why Halligan was still “masquerading” in court documents as the interim U.S. attorney despite “binding precedent in this district [that] is not subject to being ignored.”

In a subsequent order, Chief U.S. District Judge M. Hannah Lauck barred Halligan from holding herself out as U.S. attorney, struck her title from the signature block of an indictment, and noted that DOJ employment is “no safe haven from the ethical rules of this Court, regardless of her state bar membership.”

Around the same time, the district court’s judges started the process for replacing Halligan, soliciting applicants through newspaper ads, so she stepped aside. Her eventual court-appointed replacement was quickly fired, however.

The question now is whether Halligan could be disciplined for her conduct, whether through a reprimand, suspension, or disbarment. Law&Crime reported months ago that the left-leaning watchdog group Campaign for Accountability (CfA) brought ethics complaints in both Virginia and Florida.

“Once in office, Ms. Halligan reportedly disregarded the conclusions of numerous experienced career prosecutors who had thoroughly investigated [Mr.] Comey’s statements and found prosecution unsupportable. She then rushed to indict Mr. Comey in just four days, apparently failing to properly analyze the testimony at issue, the result of which was that she failed to recognize Mr. Comey’s statements were literally true or at least not provably false,” the complaint said in part. “Similarly, it has been reported that Ms. Halligan disregarded the conclusions of numerous experienced career prosecutors who had thoroughly investigated Ms. James’s mortgage documents and found prosecution unsupportable. She nevertheless rushed to indict Ms. James soon after she was installed as Interim U.S. Attorney, again apparently failing to properly analyze the documents at issue[.]”

The Virginia Bar said it could not “initiate an investigation” unless the “court determines that Ms. Halligan made false statements to the court and sanctions her for the conduct[.]”

“Whether criminal indictments were obtained through material misrepresentations of fact and done for political purposes falls within the authority of the court to determine and not this office,” a letter said.

The Florida Bar, which lists Bondi and Halligan both as active members in good standing, has since confirmed that it “already” has an “investigation pending” into Halligan.

“Thank you for your recent correspondence. We are aware of these developments and have been monitoring them closely,” the early February letter said.

The group said it made the Florida Bar’s letter public after news of Bondi’s attempt to assert control over state bar investigations of current or former DOJ lawyers made waves. Halligan’s is a case in point of how Bondi’s proposed rule could be used to lean on state bars and take over investigations the feds would like to go away.