After Being Excoriated by Trump-Appointed Judge, Halligan Is Removed by DOJ

In a scathing 18-page opinion and order, a Trump-appointed judge directed Lindsey Halligan to cease and desist referring to herself as the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVa), the post to which she’d been illegally appointed by Attorney General Pamela Bondi at the direction of President Trump. When evening fell, Halligan was pushed out by the very Trump DOJ officials who, along with the president, had abetted her defiance of the court.

The order was issued yesterday by Judge David Novak, who was confirmed by the Senate after President Trump nominated him to sit on the EDVa court in 2019. Halligan’s exit was announced last night by Bondi, in an X post in which the attorney general misrepresented the impropriety that led to this spectacle — the issue having been that Bondi’s interim appointment of Halligan was unlawful from the first, not, as Bondi claimed, that it expired and was then blocked by the intransigence of Senate Democrats.

About the Author

Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.

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In a scathing 18-page opinion and order, a Trump-appointed judge directed Lindsey Halligan to cease and desist referring to herself as the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVa), the post to which she’d been illegally appointed by Attorney General Pamela Bondi at the direction of President Trump. When evening fell, Halligan was pushed out by the very Trump DOJ officials who, along with the president, had abetted her defiance of the court.

The order was issued yesterday by Judge David Novak, who was confirmed by the Senate after President Trump nominated him to sit on the EDVa court in 2019. Halligan’s exit was announced last night by Bondi, in an X post in which the attorney general misrepresented the impropriety that led to this spectacle — the issue having been that Bondi’s interim appointment of Halligan was unlawful from the first, not, as Bondi claimed, that it expired and was then blocked by the intransigence of Senate Democrats.

About the Author

Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.