Lindsey Halligan will not be having an amazing day. However you already know who might be having a worse day? President Donald Trump.
Halligan’s indictments towards each former FBI Director James Comey and New York Legal professional Common Letitia James simply obtained tossed. The sham investigation into California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff can be disintegrating right into a gossipy mess.
A lot for New York Legal professional Common Letitia James’ indictment.
The mortgage fraud allegations towards Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Prepare dinner are problematic, as a number of Trump administration officers have the identical preparations which might be ostensibly so fraud-sy for Prepare dinner.
How dare so many individuals stand in the way in which of Trump’s need to wreak vengeance??
The defeat that has to sting probably the most proper now could be seeing Halligan, Trump’s handpicked interim U.S. legal professional for the Japanese District of Nevada, completely crash and burn.
Fam, is it good when 100% of the circumstances you introduced are dismissed, and also you additionally be taught you aren’t legally in your job and by no means have been? Truthfully, it makes U.S. Legal professional for Washington, D.C. Jeanine Pirro’s cavalcade of no-bills and trial losses look positively minor by comparability.
On Monday, Decide Cameron McGowan Currie, who was listening to each Comey’s and James’ challenges to Halligan’s appointment, discovered that Halligan’s appointment violated each 28 U.S.C. § 546, which particularly covers the legal professional common’s energy to fill vacancies, and the Appointments Clause.
So what does this imply for our favourite insurance coverage lawyer/Smithsonian DEI cop/Interim U.S. legal professional for retribution for the Japanese District of Virginia?
Effectively, first, she will now not put interim U.S. legal professional on her resume, because the ruling says she was by no means in her job legally, not even from day one. And what flows from that, after all, is that the indictments she secured whereas flying utterly solo are out.
Goodbye, indictment of James Comey. Goodbye indictment of Letitia James. Currie was mainly capable of lower and paste the order dismissing Comey’s indictment into the order dismissing James’.
The rationale Halligan will not be legally in her job is much like the explanations that three different Trump interim picks—Alina Habba, Sigal Chattah, and Invoice Essayli—should not. All of those individuals have been named as interim or appearing U.S. attorneys, so Trump doesn’t should attempt to safe Senate affirmation for this passel of pliable nitwits. The courts hold discovering that each one these appointment shenanigans don’t add as much as being an precise U.S. legal professional.
However Halligan was the one one particularly tasked with delivering Trump’s retribution, so this one little doubt actually stings.
“Blind justice” by Clay Bennett
Currie discovered that since Halligan’s set up violated the Appointments Clause, the one treatment is to dismiss the indictment, as she wasn’t an legal professional approved by regulation to conduct grand jury proceedings when she did. And since she was flying solo on these, there’s no solution to save the indictments by arguing that another eligible legal professional offered and signed them as properly.
The choose apparently didn’t purchase Legal professional Common Pam Bondi’s argument that she might in some way magically ratify Halligan’s indictments by reviewing Halligan’s grand jury testimony and deciding it was dandy. The issue with that strategy was that the federal government didn’t but have the whole transcription on the time Bondi was bragging about having learn all of it.
Sadly, the choose dismissed each Comey’s and James’ indictments with out prejudice, which suggests the federal government might theoretically deliver new expenses. Nonetheless, it isn’t in any respect clear what occurs with Comey’s indictment, because the statute of limitations has already run out.
You may count on appeals. You may count on howling from Trump and Bondi. You may count on some type of try and refile each of those. You may count on an try and have the Cool Massive Buddies on the Supreme Courtroom repair this, but it surely’s not clear that even this court docket would step into this mess.
In the meantime, Trump and Bondi are going to have to determine tips on how to salvage the investigation into Schiff, which is presently approach, approach off the rails. Christine Bish, a full MAGA activist in California, appears to have gone rogue. Bish has been bragging on social media about how she wrote the “report” that led to Federal Housing Finance Company Director Invoice Pulte referring Schiff to the DOJ for felony expenses.
The mortgage fraud allegations towards Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Prepare dinner don’t appear to be holding up both.
However now prosecutors are investigating Bish to find out whether or not Pulte and jack-of-all-bad-trades Ed Martin used improper ways of their investigation of Schiff and whether or not the felony investigation was revealed to unauthorized individuals.
Issues aren’t as cheesy within the Prepare dinner case, however issues are equally shambolic. Trump and his minions focused Prepare dinner with the identical type of obscure mortgage fraud allegations. Too dangerous that a number of high-level Trump appointees have the identical preparations, together with Pulte’s father and stepmother who managed to save lots of themselves $158,000 in taxes in 2025 alone.
Very like Halligan having realized that securing an indictment doesn’t in some way magically imply that Comey and James must go to jail instantly, Trump appears to be studying that howling for revenge doesn’t carry the day both.
Getting a felony conviction in these conditions is difficult work, and nobody within the administration is lower out for it. That doesn’t imply they’ll cease making an attempt, but it surely would possibly imply they hold failing.
