Oh, Lindsey Halligan, what have you gotten yourself into now?
How about an investigation by the Florida Bar? Oh, dear. That seems bad.
Who could possibly have predicted that letting a real estate lawyer with very little experience and even fewer morals do President Donald Trump’s bidding would turn out poorly?
Halligan left the Department of Justice earlier this year after being told repeatedly that she was not lawfully serving as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and never had been. But in her brief time in the office, Halligan managed to rack up a fairly impressive number of ethically dubious acts.
Lindsey Halligan speaks as President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2025.
There was the whole thing where the federal magistrate in former FBI Director James Comey case said that Halligan made “fundamental misstatements of the law that could compromise the integrity of the grand jury process.”
And let’s not forget about when she presented the Comey indictment—but not to the full grand jury. That’s a wee bit of a problem.
After a judge ruled that Halligan was not a U.S. attorney and threw out the indictments against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, Halligan continued to sign indictments as U.S. attorney.
Now, there’s no earthly reason to do this. It didn’t benefit the DOJ or Halligan, as there were plenty of people in the Eastern District who could have signed off. And she wasn’t signing off on big flashy cases where she might’ve thought there was some benefit to slapping her name on them. These were just regular, run-of-the-mill criminal cases.
So Trump-appointed Judge David Novak demanded that Halligan explain why she thought that she could do this—and also helpfully outlined all of the ethical rules she was violating.
Related | Pam Bondi moves to make DOJ attorneys even less accountable
In December 2025, the watchdog group Campaign for Accountability filed a complaint with the Virginia Bar over Halligan’s myriad and obvious ethical violations. But the bar refused to investigate, saying that a criminal indictment “obtained through material misrepresentations of fact and done for political purposes falls within the authority of the court to determine and not this office.”
That was patent nonsense and a chickenshit move clearly undertaken to avoid a clash with the DOJ over its high-profile, low-experience superstar.
But Halligan is no longer employed with the DOJ, so the watchdog group renewed its complaint in both Florida and Virginia. And in a surprise twist, the Florida Bar wrote back! It’s the briefest letter possible, but oh, does it say a lot.
“We are aware of these developments and have been monitoring them closely. We already have an investigation pending,” it stated.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has been hard at work trying to shield former and current DOJ attorneys from facing any consequences.
Halligan had very little legal experience that made her in any way qualified for the U.S. attorney gig, but she has been admitted to the Florida Bar since 2013, where she practiced regularly. So she’s well aware that having an open ethics investigation into your conduct is less than great.
But now we know why Attorney General Pam Bondi slid a new proposed rule into the Federal Register earlier this week, basically attempting to block state bars from investigating or disciplining current and former DOJ attorneys.
This isn’t just Bondi trying to do Halligan or any of the DOJ’s other departed misfits a solid by protecting them from discipline after they’re gone. What Bondi is worried about—and rightly so—is that investigations by the bar are just that: investigations.
In order to figure out if Halligan broke any ethical rules, the bar would have to dig into what actually happened, which would involve a deep dive into the whole grand jury mess—which would also include an inquiry into Bondi’s own role.
This administration has done everything in its power to shield its worst actors from facing any consequences. But it turns out it that can’t last forever.
