The Trump Justice Department may have just stepped on a legal landmine — one that could blow up several high-profile indictments, including those against former FBI Director Jim Comey.
According to former federal prosecutors Joyce Vance and Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan was never lawfully authorized to appear before a grand jury. And worse, they say, Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, knew it.
On Bharara’s Wednesday podcast, the two broke down how a simple but serious violation of federal appointment law could unravel entire cases.
Comey has already filed motions to dismiss his criminal charges in the Eastern District of Virginia, arguing selective and vindictive prosecution — and that Halligan’s appointment itself was illegal. Bharara noted that Comey’s motion cites both the Appointments Clause and the Vacancies Act, two bedrock legal rules that determine how and when someone can actually hold a U.S. Attorney’s office.
Vance, speaking on Bharara’s Substack podcast, explained that these laws “govern how and when interim or acting U.S. attorneys can be put into place when there’s a vacancy.”
“The argument here is that the administration didn’t use the right process for making Halligan a United States attorney,” she said. “You know, the typical route is you get nominated by the president and you get Senate confirmed. And then you get the job. And that’s not what happens here.”
She added that depending on who you believe, Halligan’s predecessor was either fired or resigned — and then Halligan was simply “dropped in.”
Vance went on to outline how the process should have worked: “One of the provisions of the act allows a president to appoint an interim U.S. attorney for 120 days.” After that period, if no permanent appointee is confirmed, the local district court decides who fills the role.
“Her predecessor had been put in under that 120-day provision,” Vance said. “So, the argument here is that you don’t get to do it a second time. Once your time elapses, it’s up to the court, and you violated the law. And that means she was never the U.S. attorney, and so this indictment that she signed has no force.”
National security analyst Marcy Wheeler didn’t mince words either. “Bondi and Todd Blanche knew well that Lindsey Halligan was not lawfully authorized to appear before a grand jury, and yet they sent her anyway,” she wrote on Bluesky.
Bharara, who once served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, emphasized that the Justice Department’s structure was designed to prevent this kind of political freelancing. “The Justice Department doesn’t allow a president to hire whomever he wants to take over his DOJ,” he said. “But that’s what Donald Trump thinks he can do. … But the freaking Constitution says otherwise. … Even in the executive branch, the legislative branch has a say.”
He and Wheeler both pointed out that this isn’t the first time Trump’s DOJ appointments have raised red flags. Sigal Chattah, interim U.S. Attorney for Nevada, and Alina Habba, interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, have already fought similar legal challenges over their appointments.
Bharara recalled Trump’s long-standing preference for “acting” officials — a pattern that lets him bypass Senate confirmation and keep control over key posts. “It ultimately means he can do whatever he wants,” Bharara said. “And it’s not allowed.”
Vance called it part of a larger “theme” of Trump’s governance: “a president who wants to have all the power.” She noted that during his first term, Trump repeatedly installed “acting” officials who overstayed their legal limits. When courts did push back, she said, “all of these decisions made by the ‘acting’ official [were] invalid because they were not Senate confirmed.”
Still, Congress mostly looked the other way.
Vance called the current situation “really troubling,” warning that Trump seems determined to push the Supreme Court to bless his view of unlimited executive power.
“This is the point we’ve reached,” she said, “where Trump is going to press forward and insist that the Supreme Court give him the authority to do this.”
If the courts agree that Halligan’s appointment violated federal law, it could do more than free Comey — it could unravel multiple indictments and expose the Trump DOJ to yet another wave of constitutional chaos.
For more on this developing story, check The Insider podcast below.
