President Donald Trump’s warping of the Justice Department into his personal attack dog is awful, so we have to take our joy where we can find it. And these days, you can take some joy from how the DOJ’s malicious prosecutions of New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey are hilariously incompetent.
On Friday, James pleaded not guilty in the DOJ’s frivolous mortgage fraud case against her. Her trial is set for Jan. 26—just 21 days after the scheduled start of Comey’s trial, on Jan. 5. And both take place in the Eastern District of Virginia, under the same unqualified prosecutor, interim U.S Attorney Lindsey Halligan.
In other words, Halligan has major trials of two of Trump’s biggest perceived enemies just three short weeks apart.
Halligan, who has her job solely to prosecute whomever Trump tells her to, had to race to the courthouse to indict Comey because the statute of limitations was running out, but there was no need to do that with James. Halligan had plenty of time to bring those charges, and an experienced prosecutor would have known to try to stagger those trials.
But Halligan is merely Trump’s goon, so she raced to indict James. And now it’ll be a hilarious pileup.
Halligan’s actions in the Comey case have been pathetic, particularly her trying to delay the proceedings, which you basically cannot do in the Eastern District of Virginia’s so-called rocket docket.
Also, Comey brought two motions to dismiss his case, which Halligan must address in the next few weeks. And James has also said she will be moving to dismiss her indictment and will, like Comey, challenge Halligan’s appointment as unlawful.
James’ attorney also filed a delightful “motion to enforce rules prohibiting the government’s extrajudicial disclosures and statements.”
This refers to Halligan recently texting Lawfare’s Anna Bower to complain about Bower’s social media post about a news article regarding Halligan’s prosecution of James. And only when it became obvious to Halligan that Bower would publish a story about the texts did Halligan demand to go off the record retroactively. (That’s not how “off the record” words, of course.)
As James’ attorney explains in the motion, it is actually an extrajudicial statement for a prosecutor to text a reporter and tell them they are wrong about something in the case! Halligan no doubt thought she was being slick by not revealing anything direct about the grand jury testimony, but it’s just as out of pocket to indicate that you, the prosecutor, have special knowledge from the grand jury that makes you able to say that reporting is wrong and the person you’re prosecuting is indeed guilty.
Halligan then added two additional extrajudicial statements. Her first—”Yes they did [get something wrong] but you went with it!”—refers to Bower commenting on and posting a New York Times’ article on X. And her second—”they are disclosing grand jury info—which is also not a full representation of what happened”—refers to the New York Times’ account of grand jury activity in Norfolk, Virginia.
Later messages from Halligan directly cite evidence that must have been presented to the grand jury, as it was also referenced in the indictment: “It says she received thousand(s) of dollars in rent.”
Come for the law, stay for the exquisite shade of the motion referring to Halligan as the “purported interim U.S. attorney” throughout.
Essentially, this motion is James telling the court to please enforce the rule that prevents the government from basically trying the case in public via dribs and drabs of confidential information no one else has.
And while Halligan is flailing on the East Coast, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is on the other side of the country, threatening to prosecute Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California for … reasons.
Trump and his DOJ will keep doing this, but people are starting to see it for what it is: retribution.
A new poll from Quinnipiac University finds that 52% of voters say Trump is using the Justice Department to file unjustified charges against his perceived enemies. And a fresh poll from Reuters/Ipsos finds that 55% of Americans believe he’s using federal law enforcement to attack his enemies.
Trump wants to say this is justice, but America knows it isn’t. Halligan is in for a rough several months. We’re here for it.
