Who is Lindsey Halligan, prosecutor in Comey, James cases? : NPR

A federal judge has dismissed the Justice Department’s cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, finding that the prosecutor overseeing them was unlawfully appointed to his role.

That prosecutor is Lindsey Halligan, a 36-year-old former insurance lawyer who served as one of President Trump’s personal lawyers after his first term and joined his second administration as a White House aide.

Trump appointed Halligan as acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in late September, a day after his predecessor Eric Siebert resigned under pressure from the president to bring charges against Comey and James.

In his announcement, Trump called Halligan a “tough, smart and loyal lawyer” who has “the strength and determination to absolutely excel in this new and very important role.”

But Halligan’s tenure has been shrouded in controversy, which reached new heights on Monday when U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Curry ruled in a dual opinion that Halligan’s appointment was unlawful.

The judge found that Halligan’s appointment violated a federal statute that limits interim U.S. attorneys to 120 days in the role, because Siebert had been in that acting role since January. After 120 days without Senate confirmation, only the district courts – not the Attorney General – can fill a vacancy.

Curry wrote that Halligan, whom she describes as a “former White House aide without prior prosecutorial experience”, had “no legal authority to file an indictment” against Comey or James. Since Halligan’s signature was the only signature on those documents, they have been declared invalid.

“All actions resulting from Ms. Halligan’s flawed appointment, including securing and signing Mr. Comey’s impeachment, were an unlawful exercise of executive power and are vacated,” Curry wrote.

The ruling leaves the door open for the Justice Department to appeal, which White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt said it would appeal. In an interview Monday on Fox News, he dismissed the decision as a “technical decision” and defended Halligan’s authority.

“We believe that Lindsey Halligan, the attorney in this case, is not only extremely qualified for this position but was in fact legally appointed to the position,” Leavitt said.

Here’s what to know about the prosecutor at the center of this latest political storm.

Halligan got his start in insurance law

Halligan Broomfield, Colo. Grew up in Denver, which is a suburb about halfway between Denver and Boulder. She played softball and basketball and competed in several Miss Colorado USA competitions and was third runner-up in 2009.

She studied politics and broadcast journalism at Regis University, a Jesuit school in Denver, including with Erica Kirk. According to a professional biography, Halligan developed an interest in law during an internship at the Denver City Attorney’s Office in college.

She received her law degree from the University of Miami in 2013, interning at the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s Office and the law school’s Miami Innocence Clinic. He began his legal career at Cole, Scott & Kissane, a Florida firm that specializes in insurance defense litigation.

Halligan became a partner at the firm in 2018 and, the following year, won praise for defeating a $500,000 property damage claim involving a leaky roof (“George and Lindsay presented evidence that the roof was old and well past its normal life expectancy,” the firm said in a news release at the time).

Halligan said Washington Post Earlier this year she first met Trump at an event at his golf club in West Palm Beach in November 2021 — months after his first term ended as he was being investigated by both the Justice Department and New York state.

Halligan told the newspaper, “I saw the same thing I saw during my internship at the Innocence Clinic: someone who was being railroaded by the system.”

Halligan went from personal attorney to assistant to the president.

Halligan joined Trump’s personal legal team in 2022.

“As a partner in Florida’s largest law firm, Lindsay proved herself to be a tremendous trial lawyer, and later represented me (and won!) in the disgraceful Democrat document fraud case, as well as several other major, high-profile cases,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in September.

Both Halligan and Trump have said she was at his Mar-a-Lago residence in August 2022 when the FBI raided the property as part of an investigation into his possession of classified documents. She helped defend him in that case both in court and on TV.

A federal judge appointed by Trump ultimately rejected it in July 2024, ruling that the prosecutor was unlawfully appointed, and the Justice Department dropped its appeal after Trump was re-elected.

When Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, Halligan joined his administration with two titles: senior assistant White House staff secretary and special assistant to the president.

Halligan remained visible, often appearing with him in the Oval Office and the US Open.

One of his most notable contributions to the White House was to lead a controversial review of more than a half-dozen Smithsonian Institution museums to “ensure alignment” with Trump’s cultural directives. The Organization of American Historians called the order, which was issued in August, an “unacceptable example of ongoing executive overreach.”

Halligan defended himself and said that he should take credit for this Washington Post When she moved to DC before Trump’s inauguration, some of the museum exhibits she visited struck her as “weaponizing history.”

“And so I talked to the president about it,” Halligan said, “and suggested an executive order, and he gave me his blessing, and here we are.”

Halligan accused of wrongdoing in dropped cases

While Comey and James’ cases were dismissed due to Halligan’s lack of authority, their lawyers – as well as outside legal experts – accused Halligan of legal missteps in attempting to prosecute Trump’s political enemies.

Halligan’s predecessor, Siebert, had opposed bringing charges against both officers due to insufficient evidence. At the time, his office had already launched an investigation into James on bank fraud charges related to a 2020 mortgage application for a Virginia property. Siebert’s resignation came hours after Trump told reporters he wanted to “fire” the prosecutor.

Trump announced Halligan’s appointment the next day. That’s the day Trump posted — and later deleted — a message on social media pressuring Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate his political rivals: Comey, James and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff of California.

Bondi’s office issued an order authorizing Halligan for the job of interim U.S. attorney on September 22, less than 48 hours later. Halligan’s office announced on September 25 that a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Comey with making false statements and obstruction in his 2020 Senate testimony.

The announcement came five days before the statute of limitations expired in Comey’s case — and Halligan’s fourth day on the job.

“He started on Monday — it was Thursday — and tried to get this indictment in a case,” former federal prosecutor Eli Honig told NPR. morning edition“I’ll tell you, if I went into a grand jury on my fourth day on the job and tried to even bring charges on such a complex, high-stakes case, I’m sure I would have screwed up, too,”

In the weeks that followed, the grand jury process has been the subject of increasing legal questions. Earlier this month, a magistrate judge took the unusual step of ordering the Justice Department to turn over all grand jury materials to Comey’s defense team, citing a “troubling pattern of serious investigative missteps.”

The investigation grew further after a hearing last week in which Halligan confirmed that the full grand jury never reviewed the final indictment against Comey — a shocking revelation that could be enough to dismiss the case, though a prosecutor at the hearing dismissed it as a “paperwork error.”

Halligan initially sought three charges against Comey, but the grand jury rejected one of them. Then Halligan or someone else drew up a new indictment with renumbered charges, but did not bring it back to the grand jury for a vote, a move that Honig said “any semi-experienced prosecutor” would not have known to skip.

“It should take 10 minutes,” he said. “Instead, she brings it to the judge with two grand jurors with her, which is not enough. And now she’s created this problem for herself because of her lack of qualifications.”

A few days later, a judge dismissed the case for an entirely different reason.