On Monday afternoon, former FBI Director James Comey dropped two motions to dismiss his prison case. Each are associated to, partly, the antics of 1 Lindsey Halligan, everybody’s favourite insurance coverage lawyer turned interim U.S. legal professional for the Jap District of Virginia.
This seemingly made for a not-fun Monday afternoon for Halligan, however then her day acquired hilariously worse when Lawfare’s Anna Bower dropped her story that Halligan had texted her out of the blue, by way of Sign, in regards to the prosecution of New York Legal professional Normal Letitia James.
Bower had tweeted in regards to the Oct. 11 New York Instances story revealing that James’s great-niece lives within the Virginia dwelling that’s the foundation for the mortgage fraud case in opposition to James, and that she had testified to a unique grand jury that she lived there for a few years with out paying hire.
That appears to be what made Lindsey Halligan lose her thoughts and speak to Bower to complain that “your reporting in particular is just way off.”
New York Legal professional Normal Letitia James, proven in 2019.
This was in all probability exceedingly complicated for Bower, who doesn’t work for The New York Instances, didn’t write the story, and was doing no reporting. As an alternative, Bower had merely tweeted in regards to the story.
However, each time Bower requested Halligan what was false in regards to the story or her characterization of it, Halligan supplied a grievance-fueled response like, “Continue to do what you have been and you’ll be completely discredited when the evidence comes out.”
Simply after Bower contacted the Division of Justice on Monday afternoon for a remark and to verify the texts had been genuine, Bower’s Sign flickered to life with Halligan saying, “By the way—everything I ever sent you is off record. You’re not a journalist so it’s weird saying that but just letting you know.”
There’s a lot to unpack right here.
Halligan referred to Bower as a reporter a number of instances of their earlier exchanges. Extra importantly, you may’t declare one thing off the report retrospectively, a lot much less days after the very fact. However when Bower defined this, Halligan got here up with a unique rationale: “It’s obvious the whole convo is off record. There’s disappearing messages and it’s on signal.”
It’s gobsmackingly silly to assume that since you talk on Sign and set your messages to vanish, it’s off the report by default. Even setting that apart, there’s one other large drawback right here: Halligan admitted she had set her telephone to robotically delete messages that had been official authorities communications, that are usually speculated to be preserved. (Additionally, hey? Ever heard of screenshots?)
Is that this a very good time to say that Halligan studied broadcast journalism in faculty and couldn’t feasibly have averted studying what “off the record” means? Additionally, did she be taught nothing from Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Sign fiasco?
Really, she in all probability did, which is that Hegseth suffered no penalties in any way.
And Halligan seemingly received’t lose her job over this, as a result of Trump truly loves this form of petulant, aggressive weirdness. However she may lose her job over Comey’s movement to dismiss primarily based on asserting that Halligan was unlawfully appointed. Not as a result of Trump cares, however as a result of the courts do.
Two of Trump’s different short-term U.S. legal professional appointees, Alina Habba and Sigal Chattah, have already been disqualified as a result of the administration’s makes an attempt to string collectively short-term appointments to keep away from the Senate affirmation course of are, effectively, not authorized. Halligan is working up in opposition to the identical problem and will endure the identical destiny. If she does, it may render the indictment in opposition to Comey void. If she’s not legally within the job, she will’t legally indict anybody.
And sure, that may apply to the James case as effectively, ought to James go that route.
Former FBI Director James Comey, proven in 2017.
Comey’s different movement wouldn’t lead to Halligan shedding her job, not less than not so far as a court docket is worried. Comey argues the indictment ought to be dismissed as a result of he’s being each vindictively and selectively prosecuted.
Vindictive prosecution is precisely what it feels like—that the prosecution is motivated by basic animus towards the defendant. And Comey has every part he must make that argument. In any case, Trump admitted that he fired U.S. Legal professional Erik Siebert in favor of Halligan when Siebert wouldn’t deliver expenses, after which Trump celebrated the indictment on social media, ensuring to thank Halligan and FBI Director Kash Patel. So considerate!
To show selective prosecution, Comey has to point out that different equally located individuals weren’t prosecuted for a similar actions. Fortuitously for Comey, Trump has a number of previous appointees who allegedly lied to Congress.
It’s robust to get extra equally located to Comey than these 4 are. They had been all high-level political appointees, all accused of mendacity to Congress, however solely Comey was charged.
Halligan is wildly overmatched right here, however judging by her interactions with Bower, she stays blissfully unaware of that. She clearly thinks she’s working circles round everybody else, that she’s a novel genius who discovered find out how to indict Trump’s enemies when nobody else may.
In actuality, she has no concept what she’s doing and no enterprise doing any of it, which implies it is going to be a delight to see what her workplace manages to file in response to Comey.
