Lindsey Halligan's unlawful appointment is back in the
news courts. First, some context:
The motion also reiterated Comey's argument that the indictment should be dismissed because it was signed only by "an improperly appointed interim U.S. Attorney." That matter is now before a different court, which (on 28 October) ordered the government to submit "all documents relating to the indictment signer’s participation in the grand jury proceedings, along with complete grand jury transcripts." (Note that Judge Currie (the presiding judge in that court) has been careful to refer to Lindsey Halligan as "the indictment signer", not as the interim US attorney.) On 3 November, the government pretended to comply with that order.
Page 13 of
Judge Currie's opinion might provide some clue to how the US Supreme Court might respond to Pam Bondi's interpretation of 28 U.S.C. § 546:
The case against Comey was then dismissed without prejudice.
No, those were (some of) the technicalities (plural) that would have resulted in dismissal had it not first been dismissed because President Trump and AG Pam Bondi made a pig's ear of the procedure for appointing an interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. The court that was given jurisdiction over that question (to avoid a potential conflict of interest) ruled (quoting both Aileen Cannon and Samuel Alito!) that Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed, and therefore lacked any legal status that would authorize her to supervise a grand jury or to sign an indictment.
That distinction is worth making because Trump and Bondi have said they intend to appeal the dismissal. If that appeal were to succeed (unlikely), the case might still be dismissed for a different reason: the pig's ears (plural) that Halligan made of several grand jury procedures (plural). Or it might be dismissed for yet another reason: selective and vindictive prosecution, for which all three of Trump, Bondi, and Halligan are responsible.
Lindsey Halligan's unlawful appointment has now become relevant in a completely different case:
United States v. Jefferson (3:25-cr-00160)
Quoting from
document 16 of that docket (omitting citations):
The Court has reviewed the Indictment in this matter, which was returned by the grand jury on December 2, 2025, and observes that Ms. Halligan identified herself therein as the United States Attorney for this District. Ms. Halligan did so despite a binding Court Order entered by Senior United States District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie on November 24, 2025, in which Judge Currie found that the “appointment of Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney violated 28 U.S.C. § 546 and the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.” While the United States of America (the “Government”) has appealed Judge Currie’s Opinion and Order, no stay has been issued in conjunction with that appeal. Consequently, it remains the binding precedent in this district and is not subject to being ignored.
For these reasons, the Court hereby DIRECTS Ms. Halligan to file, within seven (7) days of the issuance of this Order, a pleading explaining the basis for Ms. Halligan’s identification of herself as the United States Attorney, notwithstanding Judge Currie’s contrary ruling. She shall also set forth the reasons why this Court should not strike Ms. Halligan’s identification of herself as United States Attorney from the indictment in this matter. Ms. Halligan shall further explain why her identification does not constitute a false or misleading statement.
Halligan filed her response yesterday (
document 22), and it's a rip-snorter. To start with, Halligan's response was submitted not by Halligan alone, but also by Pamela Bondi (Attorney General) and Todd W Blanche (Deputy Attorney General), with Stephen E Anthony (Assistant US Attorney) and Katherine E Groover (Special Assistant US Attorney) going along for the ride. When signing that response, Lindsey Halligan once again identified herself as "United States Attorney and Special Attorney" for the Eastern District of Virginia.
In their response, Bondi, Blanche, and Halligan basically tell District Judge David J Novak that he's a bumbling fool who doesn't understand the law. Really. See for yourself:
In violation of the Rules of Criminal Procedure and the principle of party presentation, the Court has initiated a sua sponte inquisition into whether it should strike Ms. Halligan’s title from the Government’s signature block. The order launching this quest reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of Judge Currie’s orders dismissing the indictments in United States v. Comey, No. 1:25-cr-272 and United States v. James, 2:25-cr-122 and flouts no fewer than three separate lines of Supreme Court precedent on elementary principles like the role of federal courts, the effect of district court rulings, and the nature of our adversarial system.
Adding insult to error, the order posits that the United States’ continued assertion of its legal position that Ms. Halligan properly serves as the United States Attorney amounts to a factual misrepresentation that could trigger attorney discipline. The Court’s thinly veiled threat to use attorney discipline to cudgel the Executive Branch into conforming its legal position in all criminal prosecutions to the views of a single district judge is a gross abuse of power and an affront to the separation of powers.
The bottom line is that Ms. Halligan has not “misrepresented” anything and the Court is flat wrong to suggest that any change to the Government’s signature block is warranted in this or any other case.
Bondi, Blanche, and Halligan
et al. then go on to claim Judge Currie's finding that Halligan was unlawfully appointed applies only to the Comey case, and has no bearing upon any other cases (such as this one) that Halligan may bring within the Eastern District of Virginia.
For example:
To be sure, in the decretal section of the orders, Judge Currie stated that “[t]he appointment of Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney violated 28 U.S.C. § 546 and the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.” But that is simply a statement of her basis for ordering dismissal of the indictment, not an independent declaratory judgment. A declaratory judgment is a remedy that operates as “a final judgment” entered at the conclusion of a case initiated by “an appropriate pleading,” not an interlocutory order on a motion in a criminal case. But even if Judge Currie had somehow issued a declaratory judgment – which she did not – such relief would still not bind the United States in other cases or prevent Ms. Halligan from otherwise holding herself out as the United States Attorney....
The following paragraph goes on to say this:
This Court appears to be under the misimpression that because Judge Currie’s rationale for dismissing the indictments was her conclusion that Ms. Halligan was unlawfully appointed, the United States must acquiesce to that rationale in all other cases or else it is “ignor[ing]” Judge Currie’s orders.
Bondi/Blanche/Halligan et al. are saying Judge Novak is ignoring the Supreme Court's decree that district courts should generally avoid issuing injunctions that apply to every court in the nation.
In this case, however, Judge Novak is simply taking Judge Currie's ruling (that Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully appointed and therefore has no legal authority to present herself as US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia) as binding upon courts within the Eastern District of Virginia.
Furthermore, it seems to me (IANAL: I Am Not A Lawyer) that Judge Novak is acting within the spirit of a Supreme Court Justice's grousing that district courts are paying insufficient attention to opinions expressed by individual justices in cases that show up on SCOTUS's emergency docket (therefore not binding precedent on anyone, but at least one Justice of the Supreme Court wants district judges to pay more attention to such precedents anyway).
But according to Bondi/Blanche/Halligan, "The controversy adjudicated by Judge Currie was a dispute over the validity of the indictments in two specific cases. The United States is not required to treat her reasoning as law in any other case."
On the other hand, it seems to me (IANAL) that, once the unlawfulness of Halligan's appointment has been established by a court that was specifically tasked with deciding that matter at the request of a different court within the district, it's a little hard to believe that other courts within that district must disregard the unlawfulness of Halligan's appointment until such time as they themselves delegate that factual question to yet a fourth court within the district and then await that second opinion (at exactly the same district level) on exactly the same factual question.
But that just goes to show that, as a non-lawyer, I am unqualified to comprehend Bondi/Blanche/Halligan's argument, which continues as follows:
This Court made an even more rudimentary legal error in describing Judge Currie’s orders as “binding precedent in this district.” It is black-letter law that “[a] decision of a federal district court judge is not binding precedent in either a different judicial district, the same judicial district, or even upon the same judge in a different case.” And even if it were somehow binding, that would mean only that this Court is bound to apply the same reasoning in like cases
, not that the United States is bound to acquiesce and conform its legal position accordingly.
I highlighted a portion of that, because it looks to me as though Judge Novak is indeed applying the same reasoning in a like case. Yet Bondi/Blanche/Halligan still deny "that the United States is bound to acquiesce and conform its legal position accordingly."
Bondi/Blanche/Halligan come pretty close to saying outright that they don't care whether district courts rule against them, they're going to keep on saying the same things regardless:
It is the United States’ position that Ms. Halligan was properly appointed as interim United States Attorney—a position the United States has maintained in part based on internal legal advice from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. That Judge Currie dismissed two indictments based on her disagreement with that position does not prevent the United States from otherwise maintaining it.
And so on, and so on. Everything I quoted above is from the first half of the Bondi/Blanche/Halligan
et al. response. They keep going. They begin their conclusion with this assertion:
To answer the Court’s inquisition directly: “the basis for Ms. Halligan’s identification of herself as the United States Attorney, notwithstanding Judge Currie’s contrary ruling” is that, in the Government’s view, Ms. Halligan is the United States Attorney, and Judge Currie’s ruling did not and could not require the United States to acquiesce to her contrary (and erroneous) legal reasoning outside of those cases.
Which amounts to saying "We disagree, you can't going to make us change our minds, and you can't stop us from continuing to do what you and Judge Currie have deemed unlawful."
