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james comey
'Should Be Immediately Disbarred': Trump-Picked Prosecutor's Blunder in Comey Case Leaves Experts Stunned
"I honestly didn't even know this was a mistake you could make," said one observer.
Nov 19, 2025
Legal experts and reporters reacted with shock on Wednesday after Trump-appointed interim US Attorney Lindsey Halligan acknowledged that a grand jury never voted on the operative indictment filed against former FBI Director James Comey.
Politico reports that the admission appears to have put the Comey prosecution "in serious jeopardy," as Halligan told US District Judge Michael Nachmanoff the grand jury never saw the final indictment that was handed down in September that charged Comey with one count of making a false statement to Congress and one count of obstructing a congressional proceeding.
The final indictment was a revised version of an originally proposed three-count indictment that needed to be changed after the grand jury rejected one of the proposed charges against Comey.
Former federal prosecutor Ken White attempted to piece together exactly what Halligan did in a post on Bluesky.
"So here’s what apparently happened: they tried to indict Comey on the last day of the statute with a three-count indictment," he explained. "The grand jury rejected one. Rather than cross it out or indicate on the indictment that only two of the three counts were voted upon, Halligan creates a new indictment, which shows only the two counts they true billed, and has the foreperson sign it without presenting it to the grand jury."
Assistant US Attorney Tyler Lemons told Nachmanoff that it was necessary to revise the indictment on short notice after grand jurors no-billed one of the charges since the statute of limitations for Comey's alleged crimes was set to expire within mere hours.
"They really had no other way to return it," he told the court.
Nonetheless, many observers expressed shock that Halligan could make such an elementary error that could singlehandedly get the entire case against Comey dismissed.
"Lindsey Halligan should be immediately disbarred," wrote Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at the Georgia State College School of Law, in a post on X.
Political and leadership consultant Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin, a former human rights attorney, also believed that Hallingan should face severe consequences for pushing forward with an indictment that had not been voted on by a full grand jury.
"This should result in the interim US Attorney losing her bar license," she wrote on Bluesky. "Never, in almost 30 years as an attorney, have I heard of this big of an intentional fuck up before a grand jury."
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) argued that Halligan's actions were enough to justify her termination as interim US attorney.
"In a normal Department of Justice not run by hacks and sycophants and malicious clowns," he wrote, "Lindsey Halligan would resign and the indictment against James Comey would be dismissed."
Quinta Jurecic, a longtime legal journalist who writes for The Atlantic, said that she found Halligan's error to be "impressive" because "I honestly didn't even know this was a mistake you could make."
Anti-Trump attorney George Conway, meanwhile, encouraged his followers on X to "please remember to give thanks to the Lord that Trump and his people are so unbelievably incompetent."
Maya Sen, a political scientist at the Harvard Kennedy School, drew a line between the quality of legal competence in the Comey case and a three-judge panel in Texas shooting down the administration's efforts to redraw Texas' congressional map as part of a mid-decade gerrymandering scheme.
"High levels of incompetence between this and the DOJ-TX gerrymandering situation," she wrote on X. "It's hard to find people with high levels of competence and expertise when maximizing on ideological and personal loyalty, and this is a problem for [Republicans] in the age of educational polarization."
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Federal Judge Says Trump's Handpicked Attorney May Have 'Tainted' Case Against Comey With False Statements
"I have never seen a more scathing opinion, with this many errors, in any criminal case I have ever covered," said one legal reporter.
Nov 17, 2025
The attorney handpicked to prosecute President Donald Trump's enemies may have "tainted the grand jury proceedings" against former FBI Director James Comey by making multiple false statements, said a federal judge Monday.
In a 24-page ruling, Federal Magistrate Judge William E. Fitzpatrick said that the Department of Justice (DOJ) engaged in a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” when moving to secure the indictment of the former FBI director in September, following a direct order from Trump to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
As a result, Fitzpatrick granted what he called an "extraordinary remedy," requiring all grand jury materials in the case, including audio recordings of the grand jury proceedings, to be made available to the defense. Typically, information from a grand jury indictment is kept secret until it is revealed at trial. But Fitzpatrick said the "unique circumstances" made it necessary to release it "to fully protect the rights of the accused."
The most glaring of these missteps were made by Lindsey Halligan, the interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Despite being a former insurance lawyer who'd never prosecuted a criminal case, she singlehandedly brought the indictment before the grand jury, which accused Comey of lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020 about whether he authorized someone at the FBI to serve as an anonymous source in news reports regarding the bureau's investigation of Hillary Clinton.
Despite her lack of experience, Halligan—a former contestant in one of Trump's beauty pageants—was plucked from obscurity to serve as the interim US attorney for Comey's home district after Trump pushed out her predecessor, who refused to bring charges against Comey due to lack of evidence.
Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, another of Trump's enemies who Halligan has brought charges against, last week successfully got a different judge to hear their argument that Halligan was unlawfully appointed to her position.
Fitzpatrick said his decision to open up grand jury materials in the Comey case came in part because of two "fundamental misstatements of the law" made by Halligan, that he said "could compromise the integrity of the grand jury process" and potentially rise to the level of "misconduct."
Halligan asserted that Comey did not have the Fifth Amendment right not to testify, which Fitzpatrick wrote “ignores the foundational rule of law that if Mr. Comey exercised his right not to testify, the jury could draw no negative inference from that decision."
He also said that a separate statement made by Halligan, which remains redacted, "may have reasonably set an expectation in the minds of the grand jurors that rather than the government bear the burden to prove Mr. Comey's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial, the burden shifts to Mr. Comey to explain away the government's evidence."
Fitzpatrick said the prosecutor also made the highly unusual argument that the grand jury did not have to rely solely on evidence presented in the government's indictment—which was a measly page-and-a-half long—to determine probable cause. Instead, Fitzpatrick said, Halligan suggested the jury "could be assured the government had more evidence–perhaps better evidence–that would be presented at trial."
That interpretation aligns with the criticism Fitzpatrick voiced at a hearing earlier this month, calling out the Trump DOJ's “indict first, investigate later” approach to these political prosecutions.
Fitzpatrick further suggested that Halligan and the DOJ violated the Fourth Amendment by relying on evidence sourced from FBI search warrants executed in 2019 and 2020 during a separate case against one of Comey's former attorneys, Daniel Richman, whom the indictment alleged was the source Comey authorized to speak to the media.
"Under long-standing Fourth Amendment precedent," Fitzpatrick wrote, "the government may search for and seize only those materials expressly authorized by the terms of a search warrant issued in connection with specific predicate offenses."
Fitzpatrick also wrote that an FBI agent called to testify before the grand jury may have exposed information subject to attorney-client privilege between Comey and Richman, which he called a "highly irregular and a radical departure from past DOJ practice."
"I have never seen a more scathing opinion, with this many errors, in any criminal case I have ever covered," said Sarah Lynch, who covers the DOJ for Reuters.
The order may result in the case being thrown out of court entirely before even getting to trial, and the DOJ would be unable to bring it again, with or without prejudice, as the statute of limitations has expired.
If it is found that Halligan was improperly appointed to her position, the case would also fall apart since she was the only attorney who signed the indictment, though Bondi has retroactively claimed she reviewed the document even though she never signed it. It would also potentially derail the case against James.
MSNBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner said that "given today’s ruling... it’s becoming increasingly difficult to see how the indictment does not get dismissed."
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Watchdog Files Bar Complaint Against Trump Prosecutor on Comey, James Cases
Along with "vindictively" harming the defendants, the group leader said, Lindsey Halligan "is singlehandedly undermining—maybe irrevocably—the public's confidence in the impartiality of the Department of Justice."
Nov 11, 2025
As former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James work to have the criminal charges against them dismissed, a watchdog group on Tuesday filed a bar complaint against Lindsey Halligan, who is spearheading the cases as interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The Campaign for Accountability (CfA) sent the complaint to the Florida Bar and the Virginia Bar, which both have jurisdiction because Halligan is a Florida-licensed lawyer practicing in Virginia. She previously served as a defense attorney for President Donald Trump, and before her current job, she had no prosecutorial experience.
In September, shortly after Halligan took over for Erik Siebert, who declined to bring charges against Comey or James, the ex-FBI director was charged with lying to Congress—and Trump vowed that "there'll be others." In early October, James—who successfully prosecuted Trump for financial crimes before his second term—was indicted for mortgage fraud. Critics argue both cases are part of the administration's broader effort to punish the president's "enemies."
The CfA complaint outlines how Halligan may have violated Virginia's rules for attorneys that require candor to the court and competence, and prohibit extrajudicial statements, the prosecution of a charge the prosecutor knows is not supported by probable cause, and conduct involving dishonesty, deceit, misrepresentation, or conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice.
"We are asking the Virginia and Florida bars to investigate, making clear that a government appointment is not a hall pass for unethical behavior."
In addition to violating the Virginia and Florida rules for lawyers, Halligan may have violated her oath to "support the Constitution of the United States" and to "faithfully discharge the duties of the office of attorney and counselor at law," the document explains. "More generally, Ms. Halligan's actions appear to constitute an abuse of power and serve to undermine the integrity of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and erode public confidence in the legal profession and the fair administration of justice."
Along with laying out Halligan's actions in the Comey and James cases, the complaint notes her related correspondence on the messaging application Signal with Lawfare's Anna Bower, which the journalist reported on in detail.
"Ms. Halligan's actions with respect to the prosecution of Mr. Comey and Ms. James, and her Signal exchange with Ms. Bower, appear to represent a serious breach of her ethical obligations," the complaint says. "Her conduct undermines the integrity of the DOJ, appears to have violated multiple provisions of the Virginia and Florida rules of professional conduct, and undoubtedly will erode public trust in the legal system if permitted without consequence."
"The committee has a responsibility to stop Ms. Halligan from abusing her position and her Florida bar license for improper purposes," the document stresses. "Failing to discipline Ms. Halligan under these egregious circumstances will embolden others who would use our system of justice for their own political ends."
"Campaign for Accountability respectfully requests that the Committees in both states conduct a thorough investigation into these allegations, determine if any violation occurred and, if so, impose appropriate disciplinary measures," the complaint concludes.
The group's executive director, Michelle Kuppersmith, said in a statement that "it is difficult to overstate the damage wrought by Ms. Halligan's actions. In addition to unjustly and vindictively inflicting direct personal harm on Mr. Comey and Ms. James, she is singlehandedly undermining—maybe irrevocably—the public's confidence in the impartiality of the Department of Justice."
"Ms. Halligan appears to have violated numerous rules of professional conduct for lawyers," she added. "We are asking the Virginia and Florida bars to investigate, making clear that a government appointment is not a hall pass for unethical behavior."
CBS News noted that while Halligan and the DOJ did not respond to requests for comment on the complaint, Attorney General Pam Bondi publicly praised her the week that Comey was indicted, writing on social media: "This was a big week at the Department of Justice. Our EDVA US Attorney Lindsey Halligan did an outstanding job. We will continue to fight for accountability, fairness, and the rule of law because the American people deserve nothing less."
Bondi, also of Florida, has faced her own bar complaint—filed in June by Democracy Defenders Fund, Lawyers Defending American Democracy, Lawyers for the Rule of Law, and dozens of individual attorneys, law professors, and former judges, who collectively accused her of engaging in "serious professional misconduct that threatens the rule of law and the administration of justice.”
In the wake of another prosecutor charging Trump’s ex-adviser John Bolton, Reuters/Ipsos polling published late last month showed that a majority of American adults think the Republican president is using US law enforcement "to go after his enemies."
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