A new legal firestorm has erupted in the Eastern District of Virginia, and at the center of it is Donald Trump’s controversial “fake prosecutor,” Lindseay Halligan — a lawyer barely eight years out of law school, with no real prosecutorial background, who was installed as interim U.S. Attorney under deeply dubious circumstances.
Two weeks ago, Judge Curry issued a blistering order: Halligan’s appointment as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia violated federal law and the Constitution. The ruling didn’t just criticize Trump’s move — it effectively nuked her authority, tossed out her actions, and said any indictment flowing from her illegal appointment was an unlawful use of executive power.
In plain English: she wasn’t legally in the job, and everything she touched as U.S. Attorney was tainted.
The order also made one crucial point — there is a vacancy, and under the law, that vacancy must now be filled by the judges of the Eastern District of Virginia until a properly nominated and Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney is in place.
But here’s where it gets messy.
Despite Judge Curry’s clear finding that Halligan was unlawfully appointed, the judges of the Eastern District haven’t yet formally come together to appoint her replacement. That delay created a loophole — and Trump’s orbit is trying to blow it wide open. The Department of Justice under Trump, along with U.S. Attorney Pam Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche, is now arguing that because the order didn’t spell out in one explicit sentence “Lindseay Halligan is hereby removed and cannot act as U.S. Attorney,” she can keep signing filings and acting as if nothing happened.
Federal judges are not amused.
In hearing after hearing, judges in the Eastern District have looked at filings with Halligan’s name still listed as “interim U.S. Attorney” and essentially asked: What is she still doing on this paperwork? Judge Curry said her appointment was illegal. Her actions were set aside. The vacancy belongs to the court. So why is her name still on anything?
One particularly telling exchange reportedly took place before Judge Nakmanov in an unrelated immigration case. He confronted Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Patterson about why Halligan’s name remained on the pleadings. Patterson admitted the office was told to put Robert McBride — a semi-retired lawyer brought in from Kentucky to babysit the office — and Todd Blanch on the filings, but had no explanation for why Halligan was still being listed as interim U.S. Attorney. Nakmanov’s response was simple: strike her name, and don’t bring another document into his courtroom with her pretending to hold that role. Other magistrate judges have started doing the same.
All of this is unfolding as Alina Habba, another Trump-aligned figure with a shaky reputation in legal circles, has quietly exited her post as chief federal prosecutor for New Jersey after being effectively booted by the Third Circuit. Instead of being sidelined, she’s been “kicked upstairs” to serve as a special adviser to Pam Bondi on U.S. Attorney matters — a move critics are calling the blind leading the blind.
The real problem is that Judge Curry’s order, while devastating in substance, left just enough ambiguity in its wording for Trump’s legal team and political appointees to exploit. She declared the appointment unconstitutional, voided the actions taken under that appointment, and stated that the power to fill the vacancy rests with the court — but she didn’t add the one line that would have slammed the door shut: a direct injunction barring Halligan from acting as U.S. Attorney in any capacity.
Trump’s allies are now trying to wedge themselves into that gap.
Bondi and Blanch even went on social media with a furious statement accusing “certain district and magistrate judges” in the Eastern District of Virginia of waging an “unconscionable campaign of bias and hostility” against Halligan, referring to her as “the U.S. Attorney” — even though the court has already found her appointment unlawful. They claimed she and the office’s attorneys are simply “doing their jobs” and accused the judges of being “rogue” and politically motivated.
For seasoned lawyers, that’s not just spin — it looks like open defiance of a federal court order.
Legal analysts warn that this is dangerous territory. When government lawyers start ignoring a judicial order they “don’t like,” then attack judges as “rogue” from behind a social media bullhorn, they’re not just playing politics — they’re edging into contempt of court. Officers of the court have sworn to follow the law and respect judicial rulings, not undermine them publicly while quietly disregarding them in practice.
So what happens next?
The likely next step is that Judge Curry, either on her own or at the request of lawyers for James Comey or Letitia James — whose indictments were already set aside due to Halligan’s illegal appointment — will issue an amended order that removes any remaining doubt. That updated order could explicitly bar Halligan from acting as U.S. Attorney, forbid her name from being placed on any pleadings, and make clear that any attempt to “impersonate” the office is itself a violation.
Meanwhile, the judges of the Eastern District of Virginia will be under pressure to finally meet and formally appoint a legitimate interim U.S. Attorney to take control of the office. Once that happens, the Trump-era fiction of a legally valid Halligan appointment collapses completely.
Until then, every filing with her name on it is a flashing warning sign — not just of chaos inside that U.S. Attorney’s office, but of a broader Trump-era pattern: bending law, procedure, and basic ethics to cling to power, even after the courts have already said “no.”
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