Lindsey Halligan Now Free To Bring A Dish To Thanksgiving
Doubt you'd want her to, though.
We would be very surprised if unqualified idiot Lindsey Halligan is good at cooking, since she’s garbage at understanding how to go “off the record” with a journalist, oh yeah, and also at all lawyer stuff. But the acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia — for however long that lasts! — has suddenly had a bunch of time open up in her calendar, so if you’ve invited her to Thanksgiving, don’t let her lie to you and say she “didn’t have time” to make a side.
She has time. She has nothing to do this week, or likely any other week, at least until OAN hires her to be Matt Gaetz’s stunt double.
Because a federal judge has just thrown out her indictments against both James Comey and Letitia James, for the simple reason that Halligan’s own appointment was illegal.
It’s a Thanksgiving miracle!
The greatest shock is that this didn’t happen because of Lindsey Halligan’s specific incompetence, at least not yet, though much more of that could be coming down the pike, what with motions that have been filed for vindictive prosecution, and all the bullshit that’s been coming out about what a one-woman clownshow Halligan’s grand jury process was.
This was about Donald Trump’s incompetence, and Pam Bondi’s incompetence.
“I conclude that all actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment, including securing and signing Mr. Comey’s indictment, constitute unlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside,” [US District Court Judge Cameron Currie] wrote in her opinion in the Comey case, a line that she repeated in her ruling in the James case.
The rulings from Currie — a Clinton appointee in South Carolina — explained that Comey’s lawyers were correct to argue that Halligan was improperly appointed.
You can read the judge’s full opinions in either or both rulings linked in that quote above, but the gist is that according to Section 546, once a Senate-confirmed US attorney has peaced out of the building, the attorney general has a total of 120 days of interim appointment authority. This started after Joe Biden’s US attorney for EDVA left on inauguration day and Erik Siebert was appointed as the acting. After 120 days is over, only the judges of that district court may either allow actings to continue serving (which they did with Siebert), or make new appointments.
And guess who did not blindfold themselves, spin around a bunch of times and pin the tail on Lindsey Halligan, once Trump forced Siebert out due to his reticence to make up crimes to charge Comey and James with? That’s right, the district court did not do that.
In sum, the text, structure, and history of section 546 point to one conclusion: the Attorney General’s authority to appoint an interim U.S. Attorney lasts for a total of 120 days from the date she first invokes section 546 after the departure of a Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney. If the position remains vacant at the end of the 120-day period, the exclusive authority to make further interim appointments under the statute shifts to the district court, where it remains until the President’s nominee is confirmed by the Senate.
It also violated the Appointments Clause, says Currie, who considers it pretty damn cut-and-dried.
Of course, if there had been a prosecutor in THE ENTIRE BUILDING willing to sign their names on Lindsey Halligan’s “My First Prosecution” Dream Indictments of James Comey and Letitia James, they might have survived this.
But there wasn’t, because they were bad indictments, written by a bad idiot.
And it didn’t help that Bondi, once she realized the great fuckups what had transpired, had tried to appoint Halligan retroactively as a super special top secret fairy princess cowboy GI Joe dinosaur spaceman lawyer, and therefore qualified to do any prosecutions she wanted. Pam Bondi HEREBY RATIFIED Lindsey Halligan’s retroactive super secret special new title and everything! (That was the day on Bluesky where everybody started ratifying things, on equal legal footing with Bondi. It was funny.)
In response, mean old Judge Currie said there’s no “New Title, Can’t Get Mad” clause in the Constitution, and that Pam Bondi’s ratifying spells are meaningless and fuck you.
“The implications of a contrary conclusion are extraordinary,” Currie wrote. “It would mean the Government could send any private citizen off the street — attorney or not — into the grand jury room to secure an indictment so long as the Attorney General gives her approval after the fact. That cannot be the law.”
LMAO.
Currie did order the indictments dismissed without prejudice, though, so the DOJ could bring back the bad idiot cases that Erik Siebert wasn’t willing to bring and that no self-respecting prosecutor in those offices would sign, if they so choose.
Except for there are the matters of all those pending vindictive prosecution motions and all the other problems. Oh and also the statute of limitations on the crime they made up for Comey has now expired.
Also, remember the part about how 120 days is long over, and whoever will be appointed to EDVA will be decided by the judges of the district, unless Trump manages to actually get somebody Senate-confirmed? Yeah. Who besides the hairsprayed dumbass who did these “I’m A Big Lawyer Now” indictments all by herself would be willing to try to refile them?
Dunno.
But hey, these Trump administration motherfuckers will absolutely appeal and also continue to try other bullshit. And we bet they’ll lose, because every lawyer in the Trump administration is just a horrendously bad lawyer.
And we will delight in making fun of their next failures.
Did we mention this is the fourth time this has happened with Trump interim-appointed US attorneys? We should mention that.
OPEN THREAD.
[CBS News]
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I finally heard from NY SNAP. They sent a letter to my old address. I am eligible to recertify via phone because I am disabled and old (enough.) Which is actually great for NYers, it is a simple automated system, no forms. Which would be awesome if I was still a NYer! They apparently did not get that stack of forms I sent saying hey I am in Cleveland please remove me from your system and stop putting money into my account (current total $1,282. 38 that I can't touch.) But instead they gave me an increase of $16. Please cut me loose NY! I should be able to do that with this phone recertification. **SHOULD** being a key word. But the SNAP system is truly fucked up so no expectations.
Monday Bear.
https://substack.com/@ziggywiggy/note/c-180845312?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2knfuc