The Political Purge of Lindsey Halligan and the Deliberate Sabotage of American Justice

Lindsey Halligan honored her oath. Her persecutors betrayed theirs.

Today, I have elected to republish an important article by Nevada attorney Ronda Kennedy:

The Political Purge of Lindsey Halligan and the Deliberate Sabotage of American Justice

By Ronda Kennedy, Esq.

January 28, 2026

The United States Department of Justice is meant to be the supreme instrument of law enforcement in the American republic. It is not supposed to function as a partisan bludgeon, a procedural executioner, or a Senate-controlled choke point designed to neutralize prosecutors who dare to threaten entrenched power. Yet that is precisely what the removal of Lindsey Halligan as the Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia represents. This was not a clerical adjustment. This was not a good faith legal disagreement. This was a political purge, executed with sanctimony, cowardice, and calculated malice.

Halligan, who has represented Trump as an attorney, was appointed by President Donald Trump as the Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia when the President learned that the U.S. Attorney for that district put forward by Governor Glenn Youngkin and supported by Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine failed to disclose that he had a conflict of interest in the investigation of former FBI Director James Comey, who would later be charged with lying under oath to Congress. Siebert never disclosed that his father-in-law, his wife’s father, was the godfather to James Comey’s daughter and had also represented Comey as an attorney.

Indeed, it was learned that Siebert was planning to quietly pass on charging Comey, claiming there was insufficient evidence to present to a grand jury.

Trump fired Siebert and appointed Halligan, who the media quickly but inaccurately derided as “just an insurance lawyer” when in fact she has both extraordinary legal academic credentials and managed the mortgage and real-estate civil practice of a major Florida law firm, which became quite valuable when she investigated and also charged NY AG with mortgage fraud.

Even though she was reportedly told that she would get no support from the Department of Justice, Halligan presented a case to the grand jury and successfully charged both Comey and James. Those lawfully brought indictments were dismissed by essentially legally invalidating Halligan’s authority and through an outrageous assault by various members of the federal judiciary—violating both the law and the Canon of Ethics for federal judges. I teamed up with Cara Castronuova of The Gateway Pundit to expose the outrageousness of these judges, which you can read here.

Few believe that Halligan could win these righteous indictments. She assumed leadership of one of the most formidable prosecutorial offices in the United States, the Eastern District of Virginia, in September 2025 and immediately did what federal prosecutors are sworn to do. She pursued justice without fear or favoritism. She treated power as accountable, not sacrosanct. She brought seriousness, discipline, and prosecutorial rigor to a jurisdiction that serves as the Justice Department’s sharpest spear. And the moment she demonstrated that no one was immune, the regime responded with predictable ferocity.

Her credentials are unimpeachable. A graduate of Regis University and the University of Miami School of Law, Lindsey Halligan did not stumble into public service. She entered it deliberately, at a moment when the justice system is corroding under ideological contamination and selective enforcement. She brought intellectual gravity, professional rectitude, and moral courage to an office that has been hollowed out by fear of political reprisal. That courage is what made her intolerable to the establishment.

In November 2025, a federal judge ruled that Halligan's appointment was unlawful, dismissing the indictments on that basis (as they claimed she lacked authority to bring those charges). Additional rulings in early January 2026 rejected arguments allowing her to continue in the role and barred her from using the U.S. Attorney title, describing her continued claims as "masquerading." The rulings against Halligan are a legal farce based on my legal experience. The misconduct by federal judges in this case is stunning.

As of January 2026, Halligan has departed the position and is no longer employed by the Department of Justice as U.S. Attorney (or in that office), following the court rulings and resulting pressure. The district court has moved toward appointing a new interim U.S. Attorney under statutory authority, but there remains the possibility that President Trump will fire an appointee designated by the court just as he fired Halligan’s predecessor Eric Siebert when he learned that Siebert failed to disclose his conflict of interest in the investigation of former FBI Director James Comey in that Siebert’s father-in-law, his wife’s father, is the godfather to Comey’s daughter.

The Justice Department appealed the federal court ruling(s) that declared Lindsey Halligan’s appointment as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia unlawful. This ruling had been rightfully appealed, however.

The primary appeal stems from the November 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie, which found the appointment violated the Constitution’s Appointments Clause and led to the dismissal of indictments (including those against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James). The DOJ appealed this decision but did not seek a stay, meaning the ruling stayed in effect pending appeal. After the removal of Halligan, the Department of Justice failed twice to convince a jury to reindict New York Attorney General Letitia James, although the federal prosecutor assigned with that case had not been before a jury since 2011 and specialized in civil matters, while mortgage fraud is a criminal charge.

In fact, there is substantial evidence that multiple federal judges’ rulings to undermine Halligan are legally flawed. Longtime constitutional and civil rights lawyer David Schoen, who represented President Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial, says the ruling removing Halligan is legally flawed and that the President had the full authority to appoint Halligan as the interim U.S. Attorney for 120 days before submitting her name to the U.S. Senate, where Democrats would have undoubtedly torpedoed her nomination.

As of January 26, 2026, reports indicate the appeals remain active, even after Halligan’s departure from the DOJ. The statute of limitations on the narrow charge of violating the False Statements Act before Congress expired, making the reindictment of the FBI Director impossible, which does not necessarily put Comey in the clear in the ongoing investigation by the Southern District of Florida in the seditious conspiracy that began with Russian Collusion and ended with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost.

Multiple federal judges seized upon procedural technicalities to dismiss both indictments and publicly rebuke Halligan for continuing to use the U.S. Attorney title, preening as though they were defending the rule of law. But what rule of law selectively disarms a prosecutor while shielding the powerful? What fidelity to justice punishes obedience and rewards obstruction?

What the political class demands are compliant prosecutors. Predictable prosecutors. Domesticated prosecutors who understand which names must never be charged, which institutions must never be examined, and which networks must never be disturbed. Lindsey Halligan refused to accept that corrupt bargain.

“Lindsey Halligan stepped into the breach and won legitimate indictments,” said longtime Florida attorney Bradford Cohen. “She presented the case to a grand jury and won a rightful indictment. Given the circumstances, that took grit.”

Her office demonstrated a willingness to examine figures long treated as untouchable, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. What happened next was inevitable. The same media that cheers prosecutions of Trump allies with undisguised delight suddenly discovered an acute reverence for procedural decorum. The same commentators who have rationalized leaks, perjury traps, and selective prosecutions for years suddenly proclaimed themselves guardians of institutional purity.

What they call norms is merely the preservation of impunity. They can prosecute you, but you may not prosecute them. They can investigate Republicans, but you may not investigate Democrats. They can weaponize the Justice Department, but you may not use it to restore balance. This is the ghastly double standard Lindsey Halligan threatened, and that is why she was removed. This is about using lawfare tactics to unhorse a legitimately appointed Interim U.S. Attorney who would hold Democrats accountable and demand justice when she found evidence of crime.

If the United States is serious about restoring legitimacy to federal law enforcement, then Lindsey Halligan’s case must become a line in the sand. Prosecutors cannot be annihilated through political obstruction and procedural ambush simply because they enforce the law without ideological submission.

Although Republican U.S. Senators voted to confirm virtually all of joe Biden’s appointees as U.S. Attorneys, Senate Democrats have played a game of “rope-a-dope” refusing the long-standing custom of granting a “blue slip” so that the full Senate can vote on confirmation. Federal judges then move aggressively to fill these vacancies with their nominees—virtually all of whom are anti-Trump Democrats.

Lindsey Halligan honored her oath. Her persecutors betrayed theirs. This was not merely the removal of a U.S. Attorney. It was a warning shot fired at every honest prosecutor still left in the system. And if the American people tolerate it, they will have accepted a justice system that no longer belongs to them, but to a political aristocracy that fears accountability more than it fears injustice.

That is the real scandal. That is the real crime.

Ronda Kennedy is an experienced California and Nevada Attorney-at-Law who has won a number of landmark 2nd Amendment and property rights cases.