Judge Rules Lindsey Halligan’s Appointment as Interim U.S. Attorney Unlawful

We told you Lindsey Halligan would make some history, and it just keeps repeating itself.

The former Broomfield resident, Miss Colorado USA contestant and Regis University graduate moved to Florida to attend law school, then wound up becoming a personal attorney for Donald Trump after confidential documents were seized from Mar-A-Lago in 2022. He brought her with him to the White House in January, where Halligan was quickly assigned numerous tasks, including working with J.D. Vance to clean up the Smithsonian to show that slavery wasn’t all that bad.

In late September, the 36-year-old who had never prosecuted a case got a new assignment: Trump made her chief prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, replacing Trump appointee Erik Siebert, one of several professional prosecutors to exit that office. Within five days, and with a statute of limitations clock ticking, Halligan had secured an indictment of James Comey, the former head of the FBI, alleging that in September 2020, Comey obstructed a congressional investigation into the disclosure of sensitive information and also made a false statement: that “he did not authorize someone at the FBI to be an anonymous source,” according to a September 25 Department of Justice announcement.

Halligan should know all about such journalistic definitions, since she majored in history and journalism at Regis. But apparently she missed a class or two: In October, Anna Bower, a reporter for Lawfare, revealed that Halligan had initiated a 33-hour text exchange with this unsolicited, hardly anonymous message: “Anna, Lindsey Halligan here.” She told Bower she wanted to correct inaccurate coverage of her second big indictment, of New York Attorney Letitia James, who had the misfortune to buy a secondary residence in Virginia.

Only later did Halligan insist that the messages were “off the record.” Too late.

James’s legal team asked a federal judge to dismiss the charges on the grounds that Halligan was unlawfully appointed by Trump. Comey made the same argument in court on October 20. “The United States cannot charge, maintain, and prosecute a case through an official who has no entitlement to exercise governmental authority,” his lawyers claimed.

Today, November 24, U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie ordered both James’s and Comey’s charges dismissed, ruling that Halligan was unlawfully appointed to her role as interim U.S. Attorney. Currie had been specially assigned to rule on the validity of Halligan’s appointment.

While the Department of Justice is likely to appeal that ruling, Comey’s lawyers have another argument pending: Halligan’s initial prosecution was vindictive, and propelled by Trump.

“Bedrock principles of due process and equal protection have long ensured that government officials may not use courts to punish and imprison their perceived personal and political enemies,” his lawyers argued. “But that is exactly what happened here.”

But for Halligan, appointed by a president who recently leveled a wing of the White House down to bedrock, there may be no bottom. Last week, she admitted that the grand jury that indicted Comey did not see the final version of that indictment. That gives Comey’s lawyers yet another potential argument.

History is happening here.

This story was updated from the original published on October 24.