Bell

@ Bell @lemmy.world

Posts

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300
Joined

3 yr. ago

From Usenet to MySpace to Facebook to Reddit to Lemmy

1d ago

Greg Bovino Loses His Job
Jump
Bell @lemmy.world 1d ago
Excellent start, Noem next please. Also when will I see charges for the murders of Good and Pretti?

3d ago

Prosecutor Who Brought James Comey and Letitia James Cases Steps Down

Dude, I posted an article. You said it was trash but also that you didn't read it. I said I hate it when people already have an opinion before they read the article. Everything else is in your head

Text: Lindsey Halligan, the former Trump White House aide who went on to spearhead short-lived criminal cases against a pair of the president’s perceived adversaries, is stepping down from her Justice Department position.

Halligan’s departure was announced Tuesday night by Attorney General Pam Bondi, capping a fraught four-month tenure during which she served as the driving force behind the Justice Department’s prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

A former personal lawyer for Trump, Halligan was installed as the top federal prosecutor in eastern Virginia after her predecessor was forced out. Soon after, she almost single-handedly secured indictments against Comey and James that the president had demanded. Both cases were later dismissed by a judge who ruled she was unlawfully appointed. The Justice Department has appealed those rulings.

Her departure came as the federal judges of eastern Virginia increasingly questioned the legitimacy of her role within the Justice Department.

Earlier on Tuesday, the chief judge of the federal district court in eastern Virginia issued an order soliciting applicants to replace Halligan, noting that her interim appointment expired after 120 days and that the Senate hadn’t voted to confirm her.

Another judge separately excoriated Halligan for continuing to identify herself as U.S. attorney, despite the November ruling that found her appointment unlawful. “In short, this charade of Ms. Halligan masquerading as the United States Attorney for this District in direct defiance of binding court orders must come to an end,” wrote Judge David Novak, a Trump appointee who was confirmed in 2019.

Novak also criticized the tone of a recent filing, cosigned by Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, in which Halligan accused him of abusing his power. That response, Novak wrote, “contains a level of vitriol more appropriate for a cable news talk show and falls far beneath the level of advocacy expected from litigants in this Court, particularly the Department of Justice.”

Before Halligan’s appointment, the Trump administration had taken similar steps to install handpicked prosecutors atop offices from New Jersey to California by sidestepping the customary confirmation process. Among them was another former personal lawyer for Trump, Alina Habba, who resigned in December as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey after an appeals court ruled she was unlawfully serving in the role.

Bondi called Halligan’s departure a “significant loss for the Department of Justice” and said the “circumstances that led to this outcome are deeply misguided.”

“Despite multiple, unnecessary legal obstacles placed in her path, Lindsey stepped forward at a critical juncture for our Nation and fulfilled her responsibilities with courage and resolve,” the attorney general said.