Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman told CNN that President Donald Trump’s prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James not only has the potential to collapse but to get interim U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan in trouble with judges.
“I've had a chance to look at the indictment here and I've had a chance to look at the underlying mortgage document, and the only crime that's been committed here is by Lindsey Halligan and Donald Trump and maybe others who essentially brought out a criminal indictment that they know is false and was done just for the purpose of using government resources and judicial resources to go after Trump's political enemies,” Ackerman told CNN anchor Kate Bolduan. “And I say this because the key element of this indictment — paragraph six — charges that Letitia James … represented she'd be living in the house and that she would not rent it. Well, that is all false, because if you look at the actual underlying document, what they did is they cherry picked out of it to take certain words.”
“They don't put in the fact that she is allowed to rent on a temporary basis,” Ackerman said. “They don't put in the fact that she doesn't have to live there. She just has to be available to live there. They've completely taken the language to make up criminal charges here, which is a crime. And this is the same thing they did with [former FBI Director] James Comey. So, you've got a pattern here of making up criminal charges to go after your political enemies. That is not something I think the court is gonna put up with.”
Ackerman said James’ challenge could easily put Halligan’s behavior under review.
“I think there's a chance here that the judges might decide to appoint special counsel to determine whether there has actually been a crime on the court here. They have the right under Supreme Court decisions, to appoint a special counsel to do an investigation and to actually prosecute somebody who commits a crime on the court.”
Ackerman also slammed Halligan’s Signal Messenger texts to a reporter about an ongoing federal prosecution, which broke long‑standing norms for prosecutors communicating with the press.
“When you have somebody like Lindsey Halligan who's never tried a criminal case, knows nothing about criminal law, knows nothing about prosecution, that's somebody you've got to put a tight rein on because she has absolutely no idea what she's doing,” Ackerman said. “If you look at those text messages — and they're the most bizarre set of messages I've ever read in my life — and it didn't say anything. You have to ask yourself, why did Lindsey Halligan even send a text message to this reporter in the first instance? None of that makes any sense.”