BY MIRABEL ODETA
Lindsey Halligan, a prosecutor closely aligned with President Donald Trump, is leaving the U.S. Justice Department, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on Tuesday, bringing a turbulent and legally contested tenure as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to an end.
Bondi disclosed Halligan’s departure in a post on X, placing blame squarely on Senate Democrats who opposed renewing her appointment. Halligan, a former personal attorney to Trump, had been serving in an interim capacity while pursuing highly sensitive criminal investigations targeting two prominent figures viewed as Trump adversaries: former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Both cases ultimately failed to move forward.
Because Halligan never received Senate confirmation, her authority was limited to a 120-day interim appointment. A federal judge previously ruled that this temporary term had already expired last year. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge David Novak reinforced that position, ordering Halligan to stop identifying herself as the top federal prosecutor for Virginia’s Eastern District in any court filings before him.
Novak suggested the Justice Department had continued to act in defiance of court rulings that found Halligan’s appointment unlawful. Even under the department’s own interpretation of the law, the judge noted, Halligan’s 120-day interim period definitively ended on Tuesday.
“No matter all of her machinations, Ms. Halligan has no legal basis to represent to this Court that she holds the position,” Novak wrote. “Any such representation going forward can only be described as a false statement made in direct defiance of valid court orders.”
Trump had personally selected Halligan to oversee the investigations into Comey and James, elevating her to one of the most powerful prosecutorial roles in the country despite fierce political opposition. Another federal judge dismissed both cases, concluding that Halligan lacked lawful authority to bring them. The Justice Department has appealed those dismissals, maintaining that her appointment was valid.
The Trump administration had awaited Senate consideration of Halligan’s nomination, but that process stalled due to opposition from Virginia’s two Democratic senators. Under the Senate’s long-standing “blue slip” tradition, home-state senators can block or delay judicial and prosecutorial nominees by withholding their approval.
“Democratic Senators weaponized the blue slip process, making it impossible for Lindsey’s term as United States Attorney to continue following the expiration of her 120-day appointment,” Bondi said.
Tensions between the Justice Department and the judiciary escalated further last week, when the department filed a sharply worded submission accusing Judge Novak of overstepping his authority by questioning Halligan’s appointment. Novak responded forcefully in his ruling on Tuesday, saying the filing “contains a level of vitriol more appropriate for a cable-news talk show and falls far beneath the level of advocacy expected from litigants in this Court, particularly the Department of Justice.”
Also on Tuesday, the chief judge of the court moved to fill the leadership vacuum by soliciting applications for a court-appointed successor to Halligan. However, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche suggested on social media that President Trump would dismiss any replacement selected by the court, signaling that the dispute over control of the influential prosecutor’s office may be from over.
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