On Monday, a judge ruled that acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan was improperly appointed, and subsequently dismissed her indictments of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D). Former federal prosecutors are now saying that the judge's ruling may have thrown all of her office's work into question.
During a Monday segment on CNN, former U.S. attorneys Harry Litman — who led the Department of Justice's (DOJ, or Main Justice) operations in the Western District of Pennsylvania under former President Bill Clinton's tenure — and Greg Brower, who handled cases in the District of Nevada during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, both agreed that anything bearing Halligan's name is likely now damaged goods.
"Her future was already pretty well sealed ... with a series of blunders andpratfalls, including misconduct in the grand jury," Litman said of Halligan. "Thereseemed to have been some seriousmistakes.
Brower piled on, telling CNN host Erica Hill that prosecutors who worked under Halligan have stopped all new case filings due to the chaos within the Eastern District of Virginia that was touched off after her disqualification. He pointed to similar examples of this happening to other improperly appointed prosecutors that President Donald Trump nominated, like Alina Habba in the District of New Jersey., and said that the chaos is likely to continue of the Trump administration follows through on its promise to appeal Halligan's disqualification.
"For anacting U.S. attorney who's beendeemed unlawfully appointed tobe continuing to act raises allkinds of issues that put veryreal, very important cases injeopardy simply because they mayhave her name on it," Brower said. "So thisreally this puts the U.S.attorney's offices around thecountry that are in similarpositions — and Main Justice — in areal tough spot in terms ofhaving to figure out now,how dothey go forward and prosecutecases? ... It's a very real problem for the DOJ right now."
Litman added to Brower's point, observing that the administration standing by Halligan "short-circuits any sorts ofconsiderations that anybody inprudence would make."
"While that appealgoes forward ... Everything's injeopardy in that office so longas Halligan still remains theacting U.S. attorney," Litman said. "And when the Court of Appeals rules, it could be atotal ... overhaul ofeverything that's been done todate."
Watch the segment below: