Lindsey Halligan, Donald Trump’s latest handpicked U.S. Attorney, has once again fumbled in full view—this time while filing the high-profile indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James. And it’s not just a minor hiccup. The official paperwork, meant to carry the weight of the federal government, listed James’ residence as “Brooklyn, NJ”—a city that does not exist—while using the ZIP code for Brooklyn, New York.
It’s the second slip-up from Halligan since she took on the role on September 22. Her background? A résumé heavy on insurance law, no criminal prosecution—and notably includes time as Trump’s personal attorney and experience as a beauty queen.
This isn’t a small typo buried in a footnote. The criminal case cover sheet—designed to summarize the defendant and charges—got one of the most basic pieces of information wrong. James, who owns homes in Brooklyn and Norfolk, Virginia, now apparently resides in a fictional New Jersey borough.
For anyone keeping track, Halligan also made a major spelling error just weeks ago in a public statement about the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey. Two glaring errors, less than a month in. The kind of stuff that would get a junior paralegal a stern talking-to.
It was a geography fail so basic, it sparked immediate backlash.
“Her law license must have been the prize at the bottom of a cereal box,” one user quipped on X (formerly Twitter).
Another chimed in: “Apparently they don’t teach basic U.S. geography in beauty pageant school.”
“I worked as a legal assistant,” one user wrote, “we would NEVER have sent anything out with the mistakes she made. Every document was gone over by half a dozen people.”
“She’s so incompetent at this,” another user said, “which seems to be a qualification for job in this admin!”
The indictment itself—stripped of the sideshow—accuses James of one count of bank fraud and one count of making false statements to a financial institution, tied to the two properties. If convicted, Halligan said James could face up to 30 years in prison per count, along with steep fines and forfeiture.
Letitia James, however, is calling the case what many critics see it as: political payback.
“He is forcing federal law enforcement agencies to do his bidding, all because I did my job as the New York State attorney general,” James said Thursday. “These charges are baseless, and the president’s own public statements make clear that his only goal is political retribution at any cost.”
She’s not wrong to point to those statements. Just last month, Trump ranted on Truth Social, tagging Attorney General Pam Bondi directly:
“What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done. We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.”
Halligan, for her part, insists the case is legitimate.
“No one is above the law,” she said. “The charges as alleged in this case represent intentional, criminal acts and tremendous breaches of the public’s trust.”
That’s the line. But it’s hard to ignore the optics: a political opponent of Trump, indicted by a Trump ally, prosecuted by a Trump lawyer-turned-beauty-queen-turned-federal-prosecutor who can’t get the state of Brooklyn right.
One mistake is a fluke. Two, in less than a month, is starting to look like a pattern—and not one that inspires much confidence in the Justice Department’s new leadership.
