I’ve been waiting for this. Yes, I know lawyers hate disciplining other lawyers even more than doctors hate disciplining other doctors but sometimes there’s so much publicity that Bar associations have no choice. Like AG Pam Bondi Lindsey Halligan has had “issues” unlike Bondi Halligan is well down the food chain. That’s why even if nothing will happen right away it matters that a marker has been laid down. Formal complaints have been filed against Halligan in both Virginia and Florida.
Any investigation will be secretive, at least for a while so don’t expect to get much news from the state Bar Associations. However, now that it’s public record formal complaints have been filed the mistakes(?) and/or screwups we already know about will get talked about again. She and the loser lawyers she roped in to go to court to try and slide plates of legal bullsh*t past judges (for the Comey case she had to bring in some DOJ lawyers from North Carolina!) have been in the news with hearings already taking place in the Comey case. Halligan has the misfortune of trying to do Trump’s bidding in the jurisdiction the Eastern District of Virginia, often called “The Rocket Dockett.”
It’s nicknamed that for good reason. Judges there move cases, even complex ones that deal with national security and some of the most sensitive classified information right along. Cases that in any other jurisdiction might take years are disposed of/resolved in months. Resolved can mean a case being dismissed, withdrawn because prosecutors realize when things get going their case isn’t as solid as they’d thought, or go to trial and a verdict. But it gets done and in a timely matter. Add in that Comey has filed a motion to exercise rights under the federal speedy trial statute and who knows what new screwups Halligan will have to answer for?
Now, while all this is going on she will have to, according to this reporting from MSNBC have two different Bar associations looking over her shoulder:
A watchdog group wants bar authorities in Florida and Virginia to investigate Lindsey Halligan, the Florida lawyer installed by the Trump administration to pursue criminal cases against the president’s political opponents in Virginia.
The complaint, filed on Tuesday by Campaign for Accountability, cites several rules of professional conduct that the group says Halligan “may have violated” in service of the president’s quest for revenge against James Comey and Letitia James.
The group cites rules requiring candor to the court and competence, as well as ones prohibiting extrajudicial statements, knowingly bringing a charge unsupported by probable cause and being dishonest and deceptive.
“Failing to discipline Ms. Halligan under these egregious circumstances will embolden others who would use our system of justice for their own political ends,” the complaint argues.
The actual complaint is 17 pages which might seem like a lot. It doesn’t to me. Rather it seems like issues of professional judgement, competence or lack thereof have led to rules and procedures being followed, perhaps to the point of actual misconduct. There are reports Halligan, who in a highly unusual move presented the Comey case to the grand jury herself (the career folks wouldn’t do it and she was out of time – it would take some days for her to round up some out of state ringers) and might have withheld exculpatory material. Or improperly instructed the grand jury. Either would be cause for a state Bar to discipline her and both? We could be into revocation of her license territory.
I’d again like to emphasize you should keep your hopes for some near term ‘satisfaction’ in check. The worst that will happen in the short term is she’ll be replaced and I’d imagine at this point Bondi is hoping for a court ruling (despite any appeals) that the courts rule Halligan’s appointment was invalid from the start. Bondi is the epitome of a sleazy, bend every rule lawyer but she’s smarter than too many are willing to give her credit for being. She knows damn well these cases, not just Comey and James are bogus but can actually boomerang on her boss who’s already in political hot water. Just like the GOP counts on Democrats to save them from themselves, she’s counting on judges to save HER from Trump if Halligan gets tossed and the Comey prosecution is DONE. And the James one so tainted it can’t be refiled either.
I said all that because if you read the linked article it’s safe to say they won’t be actually gunning for Halligan. Not yet at least but hell, they read/see the news like everyone else and from the time the Comey indictment was filed had to be thinking she was giving their profession a bad name. However as I said lawyers HATE slapping down their own, which is why approval of the legal profession is so low only Congress is worse. Bondi is safe with the Florida Bar in part because she was AG there and has plenty of powerful friends. Plus she’s now the U.S. Attorney General. Halligan on the other hand was a noboby.
She was a corporate lawyer specializing in insurance law (protecting owners of businesses and real estate from claims from insurers) when she met Trump Marmelade-O. She not only never prosecuted so much as a traffic ticket, in her specialized area of law she never even stood up in court to argue a motion. Trump had her at the Smithsonian whitewashing and MAGAfying history when he needed someone (and fast – it was down to the last two or three days before the statute of limitations on Comey ran out) to indict Comey.
Halligan ia a lawyer version of Aileen Cannon. The latter is a sitting federal District judge with a lifetime appointment. (Don’t get me started on impeaching HER) Halligan however has none of those protections. The most Trump could do to protect her is pardon her for any (federal) crimes she might have committed or will before one way or another she’s gone. She might think that’s all the protection she needs but it’s not. Even without being disciplined by a state Bar (or worse being outright disbarred) no respectable firm will want her name on their letterhead when her government service is over.
Halligan has, just like we would see the Road Runner do in in cartoons run right off the edge of the cliff. Now, she’s hanging there in mid-air before gravity, in her case Bar investigations lead to that long, long fall and the little ‘poof’ of dust at the bottom. Actually, I’m thinking more like a line from a Naval Aviator who wrote some good books about flying/fighting in Vietnam. The savvy Grafton tells a “nugget” who’d ignored judgement in the cockpit and only save himself at the very end by refusing the commands of the sailor to keep turning his plane on a carrier deck “It’s not the fall that kills you, or the sudden stop at the end. It’s the realization that you are indeed THIS f**cking stupid.”
Halligan was smart enough to get through law school, pass the bar and get a partnership at a small law firm (about thirty or so lawyers I think) at a young age so she’s not actually stupid. However as Yoda would say ‘Strong is the bimbo in this one’ and it would be interesting to see her reaction when the realization hits that she had a helluva life and future going and got ‘STOOPID.”
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