{"id":28670,"date":"2025-11-04T21:00:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T21:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/28670\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T21:00:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T21:00:21","slug":"panicked-bondi-gives-beauty-queen-prosecutor-a-new-title-to-save-trumps-revenge-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/28670\/","title":{"rendered":"Panicked Bondi Gives Beauty Queen Prosecutor a New Title to Save Trump\u2019s Revenge Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attorney General Pam Bondi is trying to retroactively shore up the embattled U.S. Attorney<\/a> for the Eastern District of Virginia in a bid to save the government\u2019s cases against two of President Donald Trump\u2019s political enemies.<\/p>\n

In a court document<\/a> dated Oct. 31 and filed on Monday, Bondi wrote that she was appointing Lindsey Halligan as a \u201cspecial attorney\u201d as of Sept. 22.<\/p>\n

She also declared that she hereby \u201cratified\u201d Halligan\u2019s actions before the grand juries in the cases of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.<\/p>\n

The move came after Comey and James filed motions<\/a> arguing that their prosecutions should be thrown out<\/a> because Halligan was improperly serving as Eastern Virginia\u2019s top prosecutor.<\/p>\n

\"U.S.<\/p>\n

U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan is the only prosecutor whose signature appears on the indictments of James Comey and Letitia James. \/ Al Drago\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The former beauty pageant contestant and insurance attorney\u2014who also served as Trump\u2019s personal lawyer\u2014took over as interim U.S. attorney in September after her predecessor, veteran prosecutor Erik Siebert, was forced out over his refusal to charge James<\/a> with mortgage fraud.<\/p>\n

Within weeks of being sworn in, Halligan obtained grand jury indictments against James and Comey, whom she charged with lying to Congress.<\/p>\n

Trump had long called for them to be prosecuted after James led a successful civil fraud case against Trump in New York and Comey oversaw a probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.<\/p>\n

Both have pleaded not guilty and have argued in court that the prosecutions were vindictive.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve also argued that Halligan should be disqualified from her role because Siebert had already served the 120 days allowed by law for interim U.S. attorneys.<\/p>\n

Halligan\u2019s signature alone appears on the indictments, putting the cases in jeopardy if the courts find that her appointment was invalid.<\/p>\n

Federal judges have already disqualified three other Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys who, like Halligan, were not confirmed by the Senate. Their cases, however, were also signed by other prosecutors.<\/p>\n

Halligan had reportedly blindsided Bondi<\/a> by seeking the indictment against James without first telling the attorney general.<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

Former FBI director James Comey has been in President Trump’s crosshairs for years because he investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election. \/ Dia Dipasupil \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

It was just one of several missteps<\/a> that Halligan\u2014who had no prosecutorial experience before being appointed to her current role\u2014has made as she rushed to fulfill Trump\u2019s demands to go after Comey and James. The president had accidentally made those orders public<\/a> in September.<\/p>\n

In her filing, Bondi wrote that \u201cfor the avoidance of doubt as to the validity\u201d of Halligan\u2019s appointment, \u201cI hereby appoint Ms. Halligan to the additional position of Special Attorney, as of September 22, 2025,\u201d giving her the authority to conduct \u201cany kind of legal proceeding.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also wrote that she \u201cratified\u201d Halligan\u2019s signature on the grand jury indictments returned in United States v. Comey and United States v. James, and was explicitly delegating the cases to Halligan.<\/p>\n

Lawfare senior editor Roger Parloff quickly pointed out<\/a> on social media that the move came a month after the statute of limitations had run out in the Comey case.<\/p>\n

\"New<\/p>\n

New York Attorney General Letitia James secured a civil fraud judgment against Trump. \/ Pacific Press \/ Pacific Press\/LightRocket via Ge<\/p>\n

The legal authorities<\/a> that Bondi cited allowing the attorney general to delegate her authority to a special attorney don\u2019t say anything about allowing retroactive appointments or signatures.<\/p>\n

Courts typically frown on retroactive authorities\u2014especially when it comes to criminal procedure\u2014because they undermine the bedrock principle of legal certainty, according to the Library of Congress<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The U.S. legal system is built on the premise that the law should be clear, precise, and unambiguous, and its legal implications foreseeable, according to the American Bar Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Daily Beast has reached out for comment to the Department of Justice, as well as to lawyers for Comey and James.<\/p>\n

A federal judge will hear arguments on Nov. 13 on the defendants\u2019 motions to dismiss the cases against them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attorney General Pam Bondi is trying to retroactively shore up the embattled U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[153,17881,17880,2842,398,2853,9,24,63,2038,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-28670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-grand-jury-indictments","10":"tag-insurance-attorney","11":"tag-james-comey","12":"tag-letitia-james","13":"tag-lindsey-halligan","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-city","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-pam-bondi","18":"tag-queens","19":"tag-queens-headlines","20":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}