Lindsey Halligan quits hours after judge says she can no longer identify as a U.S. attorney

Lindsey Halligan’s tumultuous tenure as the ranking federal prosecutor in eastern Virginia collapsed late Tuesday when she quit, hours after a judge ordered her to stop calling herself the district’s U.S. attorney.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, who just last week signed a combative motion arguing that Halligan was in the right, said on social media Tuesday night that Halligan’s “departure is a significant loss for the Department of Justice,” and that she “served with the utmost distinction and an unwavering commitment to the rule of law.”

Federal judges in the Eastern District of Virginia disagreed, and repeatedly made that clear during an extraordinary standoff between the executive and judicial branches over “a former White House aide with no prosecutorial experience,” as one of jurists once labeled her.

Halligan was handpicked by President Donald Trump to replace a U.S. attorney who balked at pursuing the prosecutions Trump had publicly called for of New York Attorney General Letitia James. Halligan initially secured indictments against James and former FBI Director James Comey, another Trump foe, but those cases were scuttled in part because of how she handled them.

U.S. District Judge David Novak, himself a Trump appointee, issued a fiery 18-page order earlier Tuesday condemning Halligan for continuing to represent herself as the U.S. attorney for the district despite another judge’s ruling in November that Halligan had been appointed to the position unlawfully.

Novak ordered Halligan to immediately drop the U.S. attorney title from all future legal filings, saying she has “no legal basis” to hold the position and that “any such representation going forward can only be described as a false statement made in direct defiance of valid court orders.”

The order, which came after Halligan was asked to submit an explanation to the court for her continued use of the title despite the November order, demands that Bondi and Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche be given the same direction after they appeared as signatories on Halligan’s explanation.

“Ms. Halligan’s response, in which she was joined by both the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, 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,” Novak wrote in the order.

Novak had given Halligan seven days to explain to the court why she had continued to identify herself as U.S. attorney despite the November order. In her brief, Halligan called the court “flat wrong” for ordering that her title was unlawful and held that she had not “misrepresented” her title.

Novak also promised disciplinary action against Halligan and the Justice Department or any other signatories if they “persist in ignoring” the court’s orders.

In November, U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie ruled Halligan’s service as U.S. attorney unconstitutional and the indictments she brought against Trump’s political rivals invalid.

From that point on, Halligan said in a statement late Tuesday, “My name was struck from filings. Disciplinary proceedings were threatened. I was subjected to baseless accusations of lying to a tribunal and making false or misleading statements.”

Assistant U.S. attorneys working under her “were told in open court that I should resign,” she continued.

Bondi and Blanche decried Currie’s decision as an “unconscionable campaign of bias” against Halligan.

“We will not be deterred by rogue judges who fail to live up to their obligations of impartiality because of their own political views,” Bondi said of judges in the district after they questioned the Justice Department for continuing to list Halligan as U.S. attorney on court documents after the November ruling. 

Halligan is a former insurance lawyer who helped defend Trump in a civil case related to the indictment former special counsel Jack Smith brought over Trump’s handling of classified information after he left the presidency in 2021.

Bondi initially appointed her to serve as interim U.S. attorney in September after Trump’s first pick, Erik Siebert, resigned amid pressure from the president to prosecute James over mortgage fraud allegations. 

Within days of assuming the position, Halligan secured a criminal indictment against Comey. She then secured an indictment against James. Both were thrown out after Halligan’s appointment was found unconstitutional. Grand juries have since declined to reindict both James and Comey. 

The statute invoked by the Trump administration to appoint Halligan only allows an interim U.S. attorney to serve for 120 days. Since Siebert was already an interim appointee, Currie found the clock began when he was appointed in January 2025.

Time had already run out when Halligan assumed the position Sept. 22, Currie found, so Bondi did not actually have the authority to appoint her as interim U.S. attorney.

“In terms that could not have been clearer, Judge Currie held that Ms. Halligan’s appointment as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid and that Ms. Halligan has been unlawfully serving in that role since September 22, 2025,” Novak wrote in Tuesday’s order.

Bondi, in an attempt to evade Currie’s order, named Halligan a “special attorney” in the Eastern District of Virginia. The position, Bondi said, gives Halligan authority to conduct “any kind of legal proceeding, civil or criminal, including grand jury proceedings and proceedings before United States Magistrates and Judges.”

Novak said his order “does not prevent Ms. Halligan from entering an appearance or signing her name to pleadings in this Court as a ‘Special Attorney,’ whatever that title may mean.”

In her statement, Halligan maintained she stepped down not because of the judges’ orders but because, as she and Bondi saw it, her 120-day appointment ended Tuesday.

Even before Bondi announced that Halligan had quit, judges in the district had started advertising for her job. The court holds the authority to appoint an interim U.S. attorney to serve until the Senate confirms a presidential nominee.

Sources close to the decision told MS NOW that the court hesitated to do so because of concern that Bondi would immediately fire any Justice Department attorney elevated to the position. 

Bondi, however, does not have the authority to fire an appointee if the court makes a selection outside the Justice Department.