The Department of Justice is defending Lindsey Halligan’s position as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, dismissing an order by a federal judge who said she could not legally hold the title.
The department said in a filing that U.S. District Judge David Novak’s order demanding to know why Ms. Halligan could continue to serve as the interim U.S. attorney had violated U.S. Supreme Court precedent about the role of federal courts.
The Justice Department argued that Judge Novak’s suggestion that disciplinary action could be taken is another form of judicial overreach, which the White House has complained about throughout much of President Trump’s second term.
“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 DOJ said Tuesday in its filing, which was signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Ms. Halligan.
Judge Novak, a Trump appointee, last week ordered the DOJ to explain why Ms. Halligan, a former personal attorney for Mr. Trump with no prosecutorial experience, could continue to serve as interim U.S. attorney despite a prior ruling disqualifying her from that role.
In November, a federal judge in Virginia said the White House cannot legally appoint two interim U.S. attorneys in a row.
U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie held up Ms. Halligan’s unlawful interim status as the basis for dismissing criminal charges against former FBI Director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Ms. Halligan was put into the position after her predecessor, Erik Siebert, refused to go forward with the cases against Mr. Comey and Ms. James.
Judge Novak cited the issue in a federal bank robbery indictment this month that listed Ms. Halligan as the U.S. attorney. He said putting her name on the document could qualify as prosecutors making a misleading statement.
But the Justice Department accused Judge Novak of seizing on this issue to derail the work of a Trump-appointed prosecutor.
“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,” the agency wrote.
