Oh, mercy. This is one of those right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. This is bad because she seems to be helping Trump with his retribution tour instead of following the chain of command. She may not hold her job for much longer. Does she realize this? Does Trump have a hold on something big that could take her down? She certainly does NOT belong as a federal prosecutor. From AlterNet:
Interim U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan – who President Donald Trump installed in late September — may have completely circumvented Attorney General Pam Bondi in her latest high-profile indictment. One former U.S. attorney emphasized that such a move would be “funky” and “nuts.” ABC News reported Friday that Bondi was reportedly “caught off guard” by the news that Halligan indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) on Thursday. Senior Department of Justice (DOJ) leadership hadn’t been informed that Halligan was presenting evidence to a grand jury until after the fact.
Uh oh. Retribution for Trump and skipping the chain of command is not a good thing. And how arrogant was she to go off and do this on her own? She doesn’t have the authority and experience at a federal level to go do this sort of thing for Trump. We can wish we were the proverbial fly on the wall for the conversations that she is going to have. Will she get fired? At a guess, it’s 50-50 right now. She may insist Trump told her what to do, and she can’t cross El Presidente Imbécil. But still. We know of some of the things that Blondi does when she’s crossed.
During a Friday interview with CNN host Brianna Keilar, former U.S. attorney Harry Litman (an appointee of former President Bill Clinton) argued that the details over James’ indictment were growing “stranger and stranger,” especially with the news that Halligan had been apparently keeping Bondi “at arms’ length.” “All the evidence seems very strong that it was directed or it was to satisfy Trump’s urge for a reprisal prosecution,” Litman said. “Lindsey Halligan is his private attorney. Did she just completely bypass DOJ leadership and go directly to the top? That would be very anomalous and improper.” This means Halligan – who also indicted former FBI Director James Comey in late September — has almost no courtroom experience, and is nonetheless reportedly keeping the DOJ in the dark about criminally charging Trump’s political opponents.
Ouch! There appear to be a couple of reasons for what she did, and none of them are good, although Blondi isn’t much better. She uses the power of her position for stupid things, too. Nevertheless, one hand not knowing what the other is doing is just not a good thing in this case. Even if Lindsey didn’t need any help, she still should have at least told *someone* in the DOJ what she was planning to do with direct orders from Trump. And honestly, what was she THINKING?!?!
“Possibly she wants Bondi to have deniability, but we’re going to have a focus here as we did in Comey about the reasons for doing this prosecution. Was it reprisal or not? And that’s gonna engage leadership of DOJ, if she somehow did this on her own.” “Remember, she has zero experience. She doesn’t know where the door is,” he added. “That’s gonna be, funky would be the legal term. Just really nuts.” Halligan is less than a month into her role after Trump fired her predecessor, Erik Siebert, who he himself appointed to head the Eastern District of Virginia this spring. Siebert was driven out of his position after refusing to bring charges against Comey, James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who led impeachment proceedings against Trump.
Well, at least there’s one side note of someone doing something right. Where she found the “evidence” to give to a grand jury is a good question. It must have been something both times, with former FBI Head James Comey and NY AG Letitia James. Where and how remain. We probably won’t find out about the second grand jury, not after what she did and what came out on the first. But overall, this is highly specious, and there’s a good chance this one will also get thrown out. We can hope, right? Seriously, though, what the hell is going *ON* here?
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