Dem
47
GOP
53
We mentioned this yesterday, but it demands a bit more attention. How many adverse court decisions from one district does it take to get rid of an unlawfully appointed U.S. Attorney? The world may never know, because Lindsey Halligan resigned her position on Tuesday. But she did not go without getting in one last shot at the courts who ruled against her every step of the way. She claimed she resigned only because her 120-day appointment was up, despite the fact that the court failed to "fill the vacancy it said already existed" and "declined to exercise the authority it claimed was exclusively its own." You have to admire the chutzpah.
In actuality, yet another judge in the Eastern District of Virginia, U.S. District Judge David Novak, a Trump appointee, had asked her to explain what the heck she was still doing there after Novak's colleague from South Carolina, Judge Cameron Currie, had ruled her appointment was invalid. Her response was a screed that essentially told the judge to mind his own business and that he should have better things to do with his time. Judge Novak did not take too kindly to that approach. In a tone that can only be described as alternately patronizing and dripping with sarcasm, he carefully explained to the "inexperienced" Halligan that a district court ruling applies to all cases in the Eastern District of Virginia, and she purports to work where? Oh yeah, the EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA. He stopped short of calling her a moron, but it was close. "Ms. Halligan's response, in which she was joined by both the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, 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," the judge wrote. "The Court will not engage in a similar tit-for-tat."
In the end, Novak didn't actually bring the hammer down (because why would any of these corrupt lackeys ever have to answer for their misconduct?) and decided that her stupidity, er, inexperience was entitled to the "benefit of the doubt" so long as she never signed her name to anything ever again in his district as U.S. Attorney. He also said that any attorneys joining her on a pleading could be subject to disciplinary action. That undoubtedly got "AG" Pam Bondi's attention. But not before they at first tried to rename Halligan as a "special attorney." Well, she's certainly special.
Meanwhile, EDVA Chief Judge M. Hannah Lauck had already started advertising for a new U.S. Attorney even before Judge Novak's ruling came down. That's one way to get the message across. Maybe Erik Siebert is still available and would want his old job back.
So, it could be that this particular saga has come to an end, and James Comey and Letitia James can rest a little easier. But given that Trump has now set his sights on public officials in Minnesota and has created a new Special Assistant Attorney General, who is answerable only to him, to invent crimes against anyone who crosses him, none of us can rest easy. (L)