Sure is a hot news week for leakers, and you journalists and mommybloggers are going to especially enjoy this one!
This regime is terrible at so many things, and being *not very* ALL CLEAR ON OPSEC is definitely one of them. The latest drop comes courtesy of loose lips Lindsey Halligan herself, the top prosecutor for the Eastern District of Virginia and (previously?) Donald Trump’s personal lawyer. She Signal-chatted Lawfare Senior Editor Anna Bower to say that, YUH HUH, there is evidence New York AG Letitia James did a crime — but she wouldn’t say what it was, and told Bower she was a bad reporter!
The whole thing is jaw-droppingly insane and stupid, and you should click through and read it. Here’s a quick recap:
The DOJ under Donald John Trump has been laser-focused on locking up his political enemies, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, the prosecutor with the audacity to expose Trump not as a genius businessman but a lying fraud who made millions while deceiving banks, insurance companies, and the taxman. After 10 months of Herculean effort — including DOJ goon Ed Martin peeking into James’s windows like a pervert, and Trump forcing out his own handpicked US Attorney Eric Siebert and installing Halligan at EDVA — he got what he wanted.
**Previously:** On October 9, a grand jury indicted James on two felony counts in EDVA: bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution, each with a maximum sentence of 30 years and a $1 million fine.
The charges are based on the accusation that James lied to lenders about a property she bought in Norfolk in 2020. She claimed it would be used as a “second home” to get a better interest rate on the mortgage but instead used it as a “rental investment property,” renting it to a family of three.
Then, two days later, *The New York Times* dug up a truffle: evidence that James didn’t break the law doing that at all. Her tenant, her grandniece, testified to a different grand jury in June that she actually did not pay rent to James. James visited and stayed over sometimes too. Moreover, short-term rentals were allowed under the loan’s terms.
But there’s no defense presented at a grand jury hearing, so Halligan was able to cherry-pick whatever evidence she could find to bring Daddy his indictment with this new grand jury.
Anna Bower retweeted this story, calling the Times’s piece “important exculpatory evidence.” That retweet did not sit well with Lindsey Halligan, who immediately messaged Bower over Signal to tell her she had it all wrong.
Whoa, hold on! When have prosecutors ever publicly talked about the details of an ongoing case to a reporter? They don’t — or if they do, they’re *very* careful. Why jeopardize a case by yapping your trap if you can just shut up?
You can only imagine Bower’s eyebrows shooting up to her hairline.
Halligan repeatedly refused to say what the Times story got wrong, even as she chided Bower for not “checking her facts.” Did she really think a senior legal reporter was going to say, “Oh no, I’m a bad reporter and retweeter! I will back off!”? It’s baffling, but apparently that’s the level of horse sense Halligan has.
Here is a sampling of the back-and-forth Bower had to endure from Halligan:
> “Ok, I’m all ears,” Bower said after thanking her. “What am I getting wrong?”
> “Honestly, so much,” Halligan replied. “I can’t tell you everything but your reporting in particular is just way off.”
She then accused Bower of jumping to “biased conclusions” based on what she read rather than “truly looking into the evidence.”
Bower sent Halligan a link to her summary of Thompson’s grand jury testimony as reported by the Times.
> “Are you saying that something I said in this post is inaccurate?” she asked.
> Halligan replied: “You’re assuming exculpatory evidence without knowing what you’re talking about. It’s just bizarre to me. If you have any questions before you report, feel free to reach out to me. But jumping to conclusions does your credibility no good.”
Halligan’s real beef seemed to be with the Times, not Bower — though she wouldn’t say what was wrong with the Times’s story either.
Bower pointed out that her post explicitly credited the Times story, not her own reporting.
> “Did they get something wrong?” she asked.
> Halligan said: “Yes they did but you went with it! Without even fact checking anything!!!!”
Again, this was about a retweet.
> “Continue to do what you have been and you’ll be completely discredited when the evidence comes out,” Halligan said about Bower’s retweet — but refused to explain what was wrong with it.
No, Halligan did not say “off the record” or “this is background.” Not until after Bower reached out to the Justice Department for a response.
Then Halligan frantically texted Bower that the whole conversation was retroactively off the record, just as Bower was approaching deadline:
> “By the way — everything I ever sent you is off record. You’re not a journalist so it’s weird saying that but just letting you know.”
Whoops. That’s not how it works.
Also not how it works: claiming that because your Signal messages are set to disappear automatically, reporters are not allowed to share them. But Halligan tried anyway:
> “It’s obvious the whole convo is off record. There’s disappearing messages and it’s on Signal. It’s just obvious!”
Oh boy. Justice Department spokesclown Natalie Baldassarre was pissed when Bower reached out, while also confirming that the messages were authentic:
> “You clearly didn’t get the response you wanted — which was information handed over to you without having to dig into the facts of the case to craft a truthful story — so you thought you’d ‘tattletale’ to main justice. Lindsay [sic] Halligan was attempting to point you to facts, not gossip, but when clarifying that she would adhere to the rule of the law and not disclose Grand Jury information, you threaten to leak an entire conversation. Good luck ever getting anyone to talk to you when you publish their texts.”
Facts? She can’t even spell the name of the top prosecutor right when public relations is her whole job! Incompetent lickspittles all.
Meanwhile, in EDVA, the DOJ purity purges continue. Halligan also fired Elizabeth Yusi, who oversees major criminal prosecutions in the Norfolk office. Yusi had worried to coworkers that she was about to be fired for refusing to prosecute James — and she was right.
Halligan also fired two more in her office: Kristin Bird, the deputy chief of the Narcotics and Violent Crime Unit, and Maggie Cleary, who was head prosecutor for about a week between Erik Siebert getting forced out and Halligan’s installation.
The massacres will continue until the president’s credibility is restored!
How many actual bad hombre criminals are going to walk free because the office is bleeding every lawyer who won’t twist the rule of law to punish Trump’s enemies? Sigh.
Anyway, if you want more on this batshit story, enjoy Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes and Anna Bower discussing it!
[Lawfare] / [New York Times archive link] / [CBS] / [Anna Bower on BlueSky]
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https://www.wonkette.com/p/lindsey-halligan-is-a-real-lawyer