\n<\/p>\n
A judge has ordered the Donald Trump-appointed lawyer who led failed prosecutions of two of his political opponents to explain why she is still representing herself as US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, after another judge ruled she was in the position unlawfully.<\/p>\n
In an order filed in the district\u2019s Richmond division on Tuesday, Lindsey Halligan was given seven days to explain why she had engaged in \u201cprofessional misconduct\u201d by continuing to sign indictments.<\/p>\n
Halligan, Trump\u2019s former personal lawyer, was installed by the president in September to lead the prosecutions of two political figures with whom he had frequently clashed: James Comey, the former director of the FBI, and Letitia James, attorney general for the state of New York.<\/p>\n
Federal judge Cameron McGowan Currie threw out both cases in November, writing in a scathing opinion that Halligan\u2019s installation was invalid, and \u201call actions flowing from Ms Halligan\u2019s defective appointment\u201d were \u201cunlawful exercises of executive power and must be set aside\u201d.<\/p>\n
The three-page order signed Tuesday by district court judge David Novak, in an unrelated case, is similarly unequivocal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the US has appealed Judge Currie\u2019s opinion and order, no stay has been issued in conjunction with that appeal,\u201d he wrote. \u201cConsequently, it remains the binding precedent in this district and is not subject to being ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n
Novak allowed Halligan, formerly the most junior lawyer on Trump\u2019s personal legal team, and with no prosecutorial experience, seven days to file \u201ca pleading explaining the basis for Ms Halligan\u2019s identification of herself as the US Attorney, notwithstanding Judge Currie\u2019s contrary ruling\u201d and \u201cset forth the reasons why this Court should not strike Ms Halligan\u2019s identification of herself as US Attorney from the indictment in this matter\u201d.<\/p>\n
Novak ordered Halligan to \u201cfurther explain why her identification does not constitute a false or misleading statement\u201d, and notes that making such a statement would be professional misconduct requiring disciplinary consequences.<\/p>\n
The justice department, which Currie ruled had violated the constitution by appointing Halligan after her predecessor, Erik Siebert, resigned in September under pressure from the Trump administration, did not immediately comment.<\/p>\n
The department has appealed against the dismissals of mortgage fraud charges against James, and the indictment for lying to Congress against Comey; it insists Halligan\u2019s appointment was lawful. But as Novak\u2019s order noted, no court or judge has stepped in to reverse or stay Currie\u2019s ruling on the validity of her standing and exercising of power \u201cshe did lawfully possess\u201d.<\/p>\n
In November, another federal judge, William Fitzpatrick, said he found evidence of \u201cgovernment misconduct\u201d during Comey\u2019s indictment, including a \u201cdisturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps\u201d.<\/p>\n
Fitzpatrick said problems included \u201cfundamental misstatements of the law\u201d by Halligan to a grand jury, the use of potentially privileged communications in the investigation and unexplained irregularities in the transcript of the grand jury proceedings.<\/p>\n
By law, the Senate must confirm an interim US attorney within 120 days of their appointment. Siebert, Currie found, had already served the interim period, thus nullifying Halligan\u2019s appointment.<\/p>\n
The Trump administration in December tried to push Halligan towards confirmation, but the process was derailed by Virginia\u2019s two Democratic senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, who refused to return the required \u201cblue slips\u201d necessary to show she had the votes to advance the process beyond committee stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A judge has ordered the Donald Trump-appointed lawyer who led failed prosecutions of two of his political opponents to explain why she is still representing herself as US attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, after another judge ruled she was in the position unlawfully. In an order filed in the district\u2019s Richmond division on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[794,4768,6095,6539,7244,571,593,81,2058],"class_list":{"0":"post-40695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-administration","9":"tag-attorney","10":"tag-defend","11":"tag-lawyer","12":"tag-ordered","13":"tag-ruling","14":"tag-title","15":"tag-trump","16":"tag-unlawful"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}