SEEING WHAT STICKS

Panicked Bondi Gives Beauty Queen Prosecutor a New Title to Save Trump’s Revenge Cases

Lawyers from the Department of Justice argued in a court filing that Lindsey Halligan’s new role was retroactive.

Attorney General Pam Bondi is trying to retroactively shore up the embattled U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in a bid to save the government’s cases against two of President Donald Trump’s political enemies.

In a court document dated Oct. 31 and filed on Monday, Bondi wrote that she was appointing Lindsey Halligan as a “special attorney” as of Sept. 22.

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She also declared that she hereby “ratified” Halligan’s actions before the grand juries in the cases of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The move came after Comey and James filed motions arguing that their prosecutions should be thrown out because Halligan was improperly serving as Eastern Virginia’s top prosecutor.

The former beauty pageant contestant and insurance attorney—who also served as Trump’s personal lawyer—took over as interim U.S. attorney in September after her predecessor, veteran prosecutor Erik Siebert, was forced out over his refusal to charge James with mortgage fraud.

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

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.

Both have pleaded not guilty and have argued in court that the prosecutions were vindictive.

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They’ve 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.

Halligan’s signature alone appears on the indictments, putting the cases in jeopardy if the courts find that her appointment was invalid.

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.

Halligan had reportedly blindsided Bondi by seeking the indictment against James without first telling the attorney general.

It was just one of several missteps that Halligan—who had no prosecutorial experience before being appointed to her current role—has made as she rushed to fulfill Trump’s demands to go after Comey and James. The president had accidentally made those orders public in September.

In her filing, Bondi wrote that “for the avoidance of doubt as to the validity” of Halligan’s appointment, “I hereby appoint Ms. Halligan to the additional position of Special Attorney, as of September 22, 2025,” giving her the authority to conduct “any kind of legal proceeding.”

She also wrote that she “ratified” Halligan’s 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.

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

The legal authorities that Bondi cited allowing the attorney general to delegate her authority to a special attorney don’t say anything about allowing retroactive appointments or signatures.

Courts typically frown on retroactive authorities—especially when it comes to criminal procedure—because they undermine the bedrock principle of legal certainty, according to the Library of Congress.

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.

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The Daily Beast has reached out for comment to the Department of Justice, as well as to lawyers for Comey and James.

A federal judge will hear arguments on Nov. 13 on the defendants’ motions to dismiss the cases against them.

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