The Division of Justice filed a consolidated response on Monday evening to former FBI Director James Comey and New York Legal professional Basic Letitia James’ challenges to the wildly unlawful and completely comical appointment of Lindsey Halligan, America’s favourite former actual property lawyer, because the U.S. lawyer for the Japanese District of Virginia.
Comey and James have challenged Halligan’s newest gig as a result of she was shuffled into her U.S. lawyer spot by way of the identical kinds of ridiculous appointment contortions courts have already dominated weren’t legitimate.
Not only one courtroom: you, Alina Habba in New Jersey.
Not simply two courts: you, Sigal Chattah in Nevada
However three courts and counting: you, Invoice Essayli within the Center District of California.
However, a-ha! Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi has a trick up her sleeve, which boils all the way down to “Haha, suckers! You challenged Halligan’s appointment as an interim U.S. attorney? Well, check out this order I wrote on Halloween that says Halligan is also a ‘Special Attorney’!! Betcha didn’t think of that!”
Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi speaks within the briefing room of the White Home as President Donald Trump seems on.
Sure, the DOJ filed with the courtroom an order to no person, allegedly written by Bondi on Oct. 31, the place she retroactively appointed Halligan to her new particular lawyer function, efficient again on Sept. 22, and claims that this ratified Halligan’s appointment “as an attorney of the Department of Justice going forward.”
And, since Bondi can at all times appoint a particular lawyer to do no matter she needs, then it was completely high-quality, cool, and good that Halligan indicted Comey and James, as a result of she was magically doing it as a particular lawyer. Retroactively.
Bondi’s rationale is that she has the ability to nominate anybody she needs as a particular lawyer, in no matter function she needs. So, by making Halligan a particular lawyer retroactively, even when the courtroom have been to rule that Halligan was not legally in her function as interim U.S. lawyer, then Bondi can appoint Halligan in a restricted capability, the place she is dealing with solely two circumstances—the prosecutions of each Comey and James.
Additionally in accordance with Bondi, she reviewed the grand jury proceedings in each circumstances after which exercised the authority vested in her by regulation to “ratify Ms. Halligan’s actions before the grand jury and her signature on the indictments returned by the grand jury in each case.”
Psych! Didn’t see that coming, didja? Since Comey and James are each arguing that their indictments are invalid as a result of they have been signed by Halligan, Bondi has now magically additionally signed them. Retroactively.
Legislation and Crime known as this “one simple trick” to avoid wasting the flailing prosecutions, nevertheless it’s actually extra “one weird trick,” the authorized equal of skeevy adverts you see on the backside of cheesy information websites providing a treatment for toenail fungus that one way or the other includes a banana peel.
Bondi additionally says that even when Halligan will get tossed, her terrific work in getting these indictments shouldn’t get thrown out, as that isn’t an “appropriate remedy for “what is at most a procedural misstep.”
Now, if the DOJ had a shred of credibility, it must disclose that this is identical strategy Bondi tried to avoid wasting Alina Habba’s gig as performing lawyer for the district of New Jersey, and we all know that didn’t work out so effectively there.
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Additionally, Halligan’s appointment wasn’t a procedural misstep or some minor factor like a fallacious date on a doc. Halligan’s appointment was the results of the president of the USA demanding, through what he thought was a DM however was very a lot not, that Bondi set up Halligan so she would prosecute his enemies.
Then, Trump fired Eric Siebert, the performing U.S. lawyer for the Japanese District of Virginia. Then, Bondi appointed Halligan through the identical shady mechanism courts had already dominated towards. Then Halligan secured indictments earlier than the grand jury, one way or the other just a few days after getting appointed. That’s not a procedural misstep.
Yet one more factor, you rubes. Bondi says it’s no drawback that Halligan signed these indictments solo, as a result of even when she wasn’t the interim U.S. lawyer, her function as a random DOJ lawyer “can present a case to a grand jury or sign an indictment, and the Attorney General plainly possessed and exercised the authority to make Ms. Halligan a government attorney, as the Attorney General has now confirmed.”
That is, in fact, ridiculous. Bondi’s assertion primarily signifies that any junior prosecutor wherever within the DOJ and U.S. lawyer places of work is absolutely empowered to current something they wish to a grand jury and signal an indictment. If that have been the case, a line-level prosecutor may head right into a pleasant Washington, D.C., grand jury and get them to indict Pam Bondi, and one way or the other the DOJ would then simply throw up its fingers and say “Welp, you got us! Anyone can bring charges!”
Bondi mentioning her evaluate of the grand jury proceedings might not have been the shrewdest transfer, provided that certainly one of Comey’s flurry of motions seeks to unseal the grand jury proceedings due to “Ms. Halligan’s likely motive to obtain an indictment to satisfy the President’s demands, the inaccuracies in the indictment, and the determination of every career prosecutor to consider the case that charges were not warranted.”
As a lot because the Trump administration has scrambled to avoid wasting Habba, Chattah, and Essayli, they’re going to throw way more effort at saving Halligan. She’s there particularly for Trump to actual revenge on Comey and James, and the DOJ just isn’t going to let up.
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