Illegitimate

      If Donald Trump has any one superpower aside from snaking out of comeuppance and getting idiots to hand him vast sums of money, it's in finding and getting to work for him the worst lawyers in America. Sidney Powell. Todd Blanche. Emil Bove, Alina Habba. Mayor Rudy. That's just a partial list of the attorneys who had gone to war for Trump and failed.

     Now add Lindsey Halligan to the list. 

     Halligan's indictments against James Comey and Letitia James were thrown out today by Judge Cameron McGowan Currie on the grounds that Halligan was appointed illegally by Trump in a clear violation of the Constitution's Appointments Clause. Halligan, who'd replaced Erik Siebert as the acting US Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, was never confirmed by the US Senate. In fact, she never even got a hearing.

     It's an eerie near-reprise of the ruling by Judge Aileen Cannon who had similarly thrown out the documents case against Trump in Fort Pierce, Florida on the grounds that Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed (He wasn't).

     The case against Comey was endangered because the Trump administration waited until literally the last day to beat the five year statute of limitations. The DOJ told Siebert to hastily arrange a grand jury to indict him. Siebert balked as he thought at least some of the charges wouldn't stick. In true form, they forced Siebert out and installed Lindsey Halligan to assemble the grand jury and, with suspicious rapidity, they got an indictment literally hours later, just barely beating the deadline.

     But it wasn't the fact that Trump shoehorned Halligan into the role with the grace of a stubborn toddler trying to force a square peg into a round hole. It was Halligan's incompetence and ignorance over what a US Attorney is supposed to do.

     Judge Currie made note of this inexperience in the opening paragraph of her ruling, which stated, "On September 25, 2025, Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide with no prior prosecutorial experience, appeared before a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia. Having been appointed Interim U.S. Attorney by the Attorney General just days before, Ms. Halligan secured a two-count indictment charging former FBI Director James B. Comey, Jr. with making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding."

      In a way, one has to almost feel sorry for Halligan for being thrust in this position until one realizes that no one forced her to take the job. In some respects, she's typical of the female attorneys hired by Trump- Failed beauty pageant contestant, and wholly unsuited to lead federal prosecutions. She was, until going to work for the administration this January, an insurance lawyer who also represented a modeling agency and, again, had zero prosecutorial experience. In other words, she'd barely seen the inside of a courtroom.

     According to Judge Currie, it’s now up to the local district judges to name an acting US Attorney for that district (if any of this rings a bell, speak up now or forever hold your peace.) 

     But it wasn't just the fact that she was unlawfully stuffed into Siebert's chair or that she was comically unqualified to be a US Attorney. In going after Letitia James and especially James Comey, she displayed a level of incompetence that had to be seen to be believed. She didn't give the grand jury the full list of charges and, when she tried to undo that fuckup, she went back not to the full grand jury but the foreperson and one other juror so the rest of the 16 member grand jury was left in the dark about the charges.

     In a mad attempt to further unfuck this, Pam Bondi, after Judge Currie's ruling, tried to retroactively give the indictment her seal of approval. But Bondi wasn't the one who brought the charges. She's not even a US Attorney. It won't change the judge's ruling and now people are grumbling that both Bondi and Halligan should be disbarred. As it is, any other case brought by Halligan will now have to be automatically dismissed because Judge Currie exposed her illegitimacy.

     Now, are the cases against Comey and James over? Not so fast. Judge Currie dismissed the cases without prejudice, meaning the government can still bring forth the charges at a later date with a legitimate US Attorney. The DOJ could also appeal the ruling and, knowing Trump, he's already scheming to get the Supreme Court involved, his usual tactic when he doesn't get his way in the lower courts.

     But what about the long-since elapsed statute of limitations? The government can still use that because they'd secured the indictment just hours before it expired. In other words, the statute of limitations will still be grandfathered as far as Comey's concerned.