Thread by @realjusthuman

Today, DOJ defended the appointment of Lindsey Halligan as interim U.S. Attorney for EDVA.

In an order signed on Halloween, @AGPamBondi retroactively made Halligan a "Special Attorney, as of September 22, 2025" and gave her the "authority" to conduct legal proceedings in EDVA.

The order also says...

"[S]hould a court conclude that Ms. Halligan's authority as Special Attorney is limited to particular matters, I hereby delegate to Ms. Halligan authority as Special Attorney to conduct and supervise the prosecutions in United States v. Corney (Case No. 1:25-CR-00272) and United States v. James (Case No. 2:25-CR-00122)."

Halligan's appointment is the basis of motions to dismiss in both the James Comey and Letitia James criminal cases.

Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, a senior judge out of South Carolina who isn't assigned either the Comey or James case, is handling the matter.

The above exhibit is attached to the gov't's filing in opposition to the motions to dismiss in both cases.

It's a consolidated motion, signed by prosecutors from both cases as well as the Counselor to the Attorney General, Henry Whitaker.

Whitaker is the former Solicitor General of Florida, served in DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel in the first Trump admin, and was appointed to lead the OLC when the current Trump admin came in but was quickly moved to Counselor to the AG. He also clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas.

He also served on the Appellate Staff of the DOJ's Civil Division and argued 40+ cases in federal appeals court.

Seems like a good chap to have in your fold for a filing like this.

"The sole question is whether Section 546 authorized the Attorney General to appoint interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan in the circumstances here: where a previous interim U.S. Attorney vacated office after serving 120 days and being reappointed by the district court. Section 546’s text supplies a straightforward answer: yes."

"All agree that the office of U.S. Attorney for this district was vacant when Ms. Halligan was appointed. And no one claims that Subsection (b) applies since the Senate has not yet acted on Ms. Halligan’s nomination. Because Section 546(a)’s plain text is satisfied, Ms. Halligan’s appointment is valid."

"Section 546(c)(2) permits “[a] person appointed” under Section 546 to serve until “the expiration of 120 days after appointment by the Attorney General under this section.” Thus, each appointment under Section 546(a) may not exceed 120 days. The Attorney General must revisit her choice periodically, consistent with the nature of interim appointments."

"Even were Ms. Halligan’s appointment invalid... Any government attorney can present a case to a grand jury or sign an indictment, and the Attorney General plainly possessed and exercised the authority to make Ms. Halligan a government attorney, as the Attorney General has now confirmed."

"Moreover, any defect in Ms. Halligan’s role does not taint the indictments themselves: She at least was a de facto officer, and any error was harmless since the Attorney General indisputably could have appointed her in a different capacity to obtain the indictments.

In all events, the government has endorsed the prosecutions, and the Attorney General has personally ratified the indictments to obviate any question as to their validity."

"The Attorney General [] lawfully appointed Ms. Halligan as interim U.S. Attorney under Section 546 and the Appointments Clause, and the motions to dismiss should be denied. These cases are that simple."

"The Congressional Research Service reports that, “between January 1993 and March 9, 2006, at least eight U.S. Attorney vacancies—three under the Clinton Administration and five under the Bush Administration—were filled through successive 120-day appointments by the Attorney General under the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 546.”"

"Senator Kyl identified two pre-2006 instances when interim U.S. Attorneys served three or even four successive 120-day terms...

As far as the government is aware, the only district court to consider the practice contemporaneously approved it...

and until the current Administration, no court questioned it..."

"Citing legislative history, Defendants assert [] that the purpose of the 2007 amendment was to prevent successive interim appointments. “But legislative history is not the law.”[].

And Defendants’ legislative history reflects the proverbial “looking over a crowd and picking out your friends.”"

"If Congress had intended to block successive appointments in 2007, as Defendants claim, returning to the former text that had long been understood to authorize such appointments would have been a bizarre way of doing so."

"the 2007 amendment means what it says: The Attorney General can no longer make a single indefinite appointment under Section 546 as she could under the 2006 version; she must revisit her choice every 120 days. And courts may once again appoint interim U.S. Attorneys as a backstop."

"“Under our Constitution, the ‘executive Power’—all of it—is ‘vested in a President.’” [].

To the extent there is a dispute over whether a district court or the President should decide who gets to wield executive power, the Constitution provides a clear answer: the President."

"Historically district courts have overwhelmingly reappointed the Attorney General’s choice, as happened with Mr. Siebert and multiple other U.S. Attorneys in the Fourth Circuit this year"

This is a really interesting and compelling filing. I'll read the whole thing in an upcoming episode of my show.

You can read it here
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…