Halligan
(Photo
by
Al
Drago/Getty
Images)
Lindsey
Halligan
had
another
bad
week
at
her
pretend
job
as
US
Attorney
for
the
Eastern
District
of
Virginia.
First
Halligan
got
no-billed for
the
third
time when
she
tried
to
re-indict
New
York
Attorney
General
Letitia
James.
The
week
before,
a
grand
jury
in
Norfolk
bounced
an
attempt
to
charge
James
with
mortgage
fraud.
This
time
around,
a
grand
jury
in
Alexandria
did
the
honors.
Then
Judge
Colleen
Kollar-Kotelly
in
DC
reamed
Halligan’s
office
out
for
its
inexcusably
shoddy
—
not
to
say
unconstitutional!
—
work,
before
locking
her
out
of
the
evidence
she
was
relying
on
to
re-indict
former
FBI
Director
James
Comey.
It’s
enough
to
make
a
fake
prosecutor
want
to
give
up
and
go
get
a
real
job.
The
case
that
won’t
die
The
Comey
investigation
was
a
Frankenstein’s
monster
of
illegality
which
likely
would
have
collapsed
under
its
own
weight
even
if
Halligan had been
lawfully
appointed.
One
of
the
most
glaring
defects
was
its
reliance
on
evidence
seized
from
Comey’s
friend
and
sometime
lawyer,
Daniel
Richman.
In
2019
and
2020,
the
FBI
executed
four
separate
search
warrants
for
his
various
email,
hard
drive,
and
iCloud
accounts,
essentially
seizing
Richman’s
entire
digital
life.
Failing
to
find
evidence
that
Comey
had
leaked
classified
information
to
Richman
back
in
2017,
the
FBI
closed
that
investigation
in
2021.
The
data
was
then
tossed
in
a
locker,
where
it
sat
until
2025,
when
Halligan
pulled
it
out
and
started
rummaging
through
it
in
search
of
proof
that
Comey
lied
to
Congress
in
2020.
A
competent
prosecutor
would
have
sought
a
new
warrant
before
accessing
the
Richman
materials.
Judge
Kollar-Kotelly
and
Magistrate
Judge
William
Fitzpatrick,
who
was
tasked
with
adjudicating
discovery
disputes
in
the
Comey
case,
both
expressed
astonishment
that
no
one
bothered
to
get
a
court
to
bless
their
use
of
evidence
collected
six
years
ago
in
an
entirely
different
case.
Whether
this
was
due
to
incompetence
or
the
need
to
indict
Comey
before
the
statute
of
limitations
elapsed
was
never
explained.
But
that
procedural
omission
may
turn
out
to
be
costly.
On
November
26,
Richman
filed
a motion
for
return
of
property under
Federal
Rule
of
Criminal
Procedure
41(g).
He
argued
that
the
government
violated
his
Fourth
Amendment
rights
by
retaining
non-responsive
information
from
the
original
warrant,
failing
to
destroy
it
when
the
leak
investigation
was
closed
in
2021,
and
re-using
that
dataset
in
2025
without
a
warrant.
After
nine
days
with
no
appearance
by
lawyers
the
government,
Richman
moved
for
a
temporary
restraining
order.
Noting
that
DOJ
appeared
to
be
playing
games,
avoiding
assigning
a
lawyer
to
the
case
in
an
effort
to
keep
using
Richman’s
files,
Judge
Kollar-Kotelly
granted
the
TRO
and
ordered
the
DOJ
to
enter
an
appearance.
After
no
small
amount
of rigamarole,
Halligan
and
her
deputy
Robert
McBride
finally
complied.
The
best
defense
is
a
good
…
yeah,
not
that
one
either
Halligan
signed
the response to
Richman’s
motion
as
US
Attorney
for
the
Eastern
District
of
Virginia,
despite
conceding
in
the
filing
that
the
Comey
case
was
“dismissed
after
the
court
found
that
Lindsey
Halligan,
who
presented
the
proposed
indictment
to
the
grand
jury,
had
been
improperly
appointed
as
Interim
U.S.
Attorney
in
violation
of
the
Appointments
Clause
of
the
U.S.
Constitution
and
28
U.S.C.
§
546.”
Halligan
barely
bothered
to
defend
her
office’s
conduct,
instead
arguing
that
Judge
Kollar-Kotelly
should
dismiss
the
case
because
of
Richman’s
improper
motive.
“Petitioner’s
motion
is
a
collateral
(and
premature)
motion
to
suppress
evidence
in
another
criminal
proceeding,
masquerading
as
a
motion
for
return
of
property
under
Federal
Rule
41(g),”
she
insisted.
“It
is
impermissible
for
a
court
to
enjoin
a
criminal
investigation
and
potential
prosecution
in
another
district
by
restraining
use
of
evidence
to
benefit
a
third
party.”
Halligan
argued
that
the
government
can
retain
and
scrutinize
Richman’s
files
forever
— or
at
least
until
she
manages
to
convince
another
grand
jury
to
indict
James
Comey.
At
that
point
Comey
—
but
not
Richman!
—
can
file
a
suppression
motion.
As
for
Richman’s
interest
in
his
own
data,
Halligan
sneered
in
a
footnote
that
he
“plainly
has
an
adequate
remedy
at
law—he
could
bring
a Bivens action.”
That’s
a
patently
silly
argument.
Individuals
can
indeed
file Bivens actions
in
limited
circumstances
when
their
rights
have
been
violated
by
federal
officers,
but
those
actions
are
for
damages
—
i.e.,
money
—
and
not
for
the
return
of
property.
This
case
was
probably
always
going
to
be
a
loser
for
the
government.
But
Halligan’s
flippant
brief
almost
certainly
made
it
worse.
Give
it
up
already
A
few
days
later,
on
Friday,
Judge
Kollar-Kotelly granted Richman’s
motion
for
the
return
of
his
property,
ordering
the
Department
of
Justice
to
destroy
the
copies
of
his
data
in
its
possession.
“[T]his
Court
agrees
with
Petitioner
Richman
that
the
Government’s
retention
and
use
of
his
files
has
violated
his
Fourth
Amendment
rights,”
she
wrote,
adding
that
Halligan’s
decision
to
rummage
through
Richman’s
files
in
2025
without
getting
a
new
search
warrant
was
“a
remarkable
breach
of
protocol”
that
clearly
reflected
a
“callous
disregard”
for
Richman’s
constitutional
rights.
As
for
the
government’s
insistent
that
Richman’s
Rule
41(g)
motion
was
actually
an
improper
collateral
motion
to
suppress
evidence
in
Comey’s
case,
Judge
Kollar-Kotelly
brushed
that
aside
in
a
little
over
two
paragraphs,
dryly
noting
that
Halligan’s
brief
“misses
the
mark”
by
citing
“inapposite”
cases.
Judge
Kollar-Kotelly did throw
the
government
a
bone
of
sorts
by
ordering
it
to
deposit
a
single
copy
of
the
material
seized
from
Richman
with
the
district
court
in
the
Eastern
District
of
Virginia.
That
preserves
the
materials
in
the
event
that
Halligan’s
office
manages
to
(finally)
play
by
the
rules
and
seek
a
new
search
warrant
in
connection
with
its
ongoing
investigation
of
James
Comey.
And
although
Judge
Kollar-Kotelly
was
polite
enough
not
to
point
out
that
Halligan
is
inappropriately
trying
to
pass
herself
off
as
the
US
Attorney,
her
ruling
nevertheless
explicitly
adopted
Magistrate
Judge
Fitzpatrick’s
findings
from
the
prior
Comey
litigation
that
exposed
Halligan’s
incompetence,
including
his
conclusion
that
the
unconstitutional
search
was
performed
“apparently
with
the
concurrence
of”
the
US
Attorney’s
Office
for
the
Eastern
District
of
Virginia.
If
Halligan
were
capable
of
shame,
that
would
be
humiliating.
But
it’ll
probably
take
at
least
a
couple
more
no-bills
before
she
wanders
back
to
Washington
to de-woke-ify
the
Smithsonian.
Subscribe
to
read
more
at
Law
and
Chaos….
Liz
Dye and Andrew
Torrez produce
the
Law
and
Chaos Substack and podcast. You
can
subscribe
by
clicking
the
logo:
