Who is Lindsey Halligan, prosecutor in Comey, James cases? : NPR

A federal judge dismissed the Justice Department’s cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, finding that the prosecutor overseeing them was unlawfully appointed to her role.

That prosecutor is Lindsey Halligan, a 36-year-old former insurance attorney who served as one of President Trump’s personal lawyers after his first term and joined his second administration as a White House aide.

Trump appointed Halligan as acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in late September, the day after her predecessor, Erik Siebert, resigned under pressure from the president to bring charges against Comey and James.

In his announcement, Trump called Halligan a “tough, smart and loyal attorney” who “has the strength and determination to be absolutely OUTSTANDING in this new and very important role.”

But Halligan’s tenure has been mired in controversy, reaching new highs on Monday when U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled in dual opinions that Halligan’s appointment was unlawful.

The judge found that Halligan’s appointment violated a federal statute that limits interim U.S. attorneys to 120 days in the role, because Siebert had been in that acting role since January. After 120 days without a Senate confirmation, only district courts — not the Attorney General — can fill a vacancy.

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Currie wrote that Halligan, whom she describes as “a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience,” had “no lawful authority to present the indictment” against Comey or James. Because Halligan’s was the only signature on those documents, they are rendered invalid.

“All actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment, including securing and signing Mr. Comey’s indictment, were unlawful exercises of executive power and are hereby set aside,” Currie wrote.

The ruling leaves the door open for the Justice Department to appeal, which White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said it will. In an interview Monday on Fox News, she downplayed the decision as a “technical ruling” and defended Halligan’s authority.

“We believe that the attorney in this case, Lindsey Halligan, is not only extremely qualified for this position but she was in fact legally appointed,” Leavitt said.

Here’s what to know about the prosecutor at the center of this latest political storm.

Halligan got her start in insurance law

Halligan grew up in Broomfield, Colo., a suburb about halfway between Denver and Boulder. She played softball and basketball and competed in several Miss Colorado USA pageants, earning third runner-up in 2009.

She studied politics and broadcast journalism at Regis University, the Jesuit school in Denver that Erika Kirk also attended. According to one professional biography, Halligan developed an interest in law while interning at the Denver City Attorney’s Office in college.

She got her law degree from the University of Miami in 2013, interning at the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office and the law school’s Miami Innocence Clinic along the way. She began her legal career at the Florida firm Cole, Scott & Kissane, which specializes in insurance defense litigation.

Halligan became a partner at the firm in 2018 and, the following year, won praise for defeating a $500,000 property damage claim involving a leaky roof (“George and Lindsey presented evidence that the roof was old and just past its normal life expectancy,” the firm said in a news release at the time).

Halligan told the Washington Post earlier this year that she first met Trump at a November 2021 event at his golf club in West Palm Beach — months after his first term ended, as he was under investigation by both the Justice Department and New York State.

“I saw the same thing that I saw when I interned at the Innocence clinic: someone who was getting railroaded by the system,” Halligan told the newspaper.