OOPS: Pam Bondi makes BRUTAL MISTAKE in courtroom

You're watching The Legal Breakdown. Glenn, this one blew my mind. It looks like the Trump administration, DOJ, Pam Bondi's DOJ, continues to put Lindsey Halligan's name on indictments, even after she was ruled disqualified and that resulted in indictments against James Comey and Letitia James getting thrown out. So what in the world are they thinking that they're continuing to use this wrongly appointed prosecutor to indict people knowing full well that these indictments aren't going to stand the test of time?

You know, Brian, I would say this is unbelievable, but of course it's entirely believable given the lawless Department of Justice Pam Bondi is running. Let's unravel this one. There is a ruling that has been entered by a federal district court judge that Lindsey Halligan, who they tried to sneak in as the interim U.S. attorney to head up the James Comey and Letitia James prosecutions, she was unlawfully appointed. And her appointment, her position is null and void. She's no different than just kind of a citizen

off the street who walks into the US Attorney's Office and tries to do business. You can't do it lawfully. So it's interesting because after that ruling came out, there is some reporting that an email was sent to the prosecutors in the Eastern District

of Virginia US Attorney's Office saying, okay, make sure Lindsey Halligan's name is no longer on indictments, on government pleadings, motions, briefs that are filed in district court, which was the right thing to do. They said make sure you include the name of the first assistant U.S. attorney who can kind of act as the boss of the office until they sort this thing out. And then the reporting is about an hour or two later, there was a new email that came

out that said in substance, nope, put Lindsey Halligan's name back on everything. You can just see the call coming down from, you know, the orange man in the Oval Office like, we will not give in, we will not comply with this court order, this court ruling. I don't know if that's where it had its genesis, but that's what happened. So what we have now, Brian, is a federal prosecutor's office in Virginia doing business, including the name of somebody who is no

longer the lawful U.S. attorney for that jurisdiction including the name on court pleading. So the next question is well what are the implications? Well there are a couple. First of all we have seen this movie before because other judges have ruled that the Trump administration and Pam Bondi's DOJ unlawfully put other interim U.S. attorneys into the position, like Elena Haba in the federal district of New Jersey, like Bill Asale in the Middle District of California

jurisdiction. And what happened in those cases when judges ruled they were not lawfully in the position, when for example Bill Asale would go into the grand jury and his name would appear on an indictment, there was sort of a saving mechanism. There was a second name on the indictment of an actual federal prosecutor in the California U.S. Attorney's Office and the judge out in

California ruled, okay, well, Bill Asale is disqualified. However, there is a second legitimate prosecutor's name on the indictment and that saves it. Of course, that was not the case in the James Comey and the Letitia James cases on their indictments. It was only Lindsey Halligan. So those things have been thrown out. They have been ruled null and void. You would have thought DOJ would have learned its lesson,

but no, they are stubbornly, you know, like an obstinate child with apologies to obstinate children, just continuing to lawlessly put her name on court filings. What I suspect is going on there, and I can probably go on what's called Pacer, the online computer database that shows you all federal court pleadings, I suspect they're smart enough

to have a second name on those pleadings, and they're leaving her name on just as a way to kind of stick their finger in the eye of Judge Curry who entered this ruling and the federal judiciary writ large. So this is more of a symbolic FU than a substantive FU in my opinion.

Right. That's what I was going to dig into this idea that if the Trump administration concedes that her name can't be let onto these indictments, then it's kind of a capitulation. It's kind of them admitting fault, and it looks like they're still gonna go to the mat

on those existing indictments against Letitia James and James Comey, even though they've been dismissed. They're likely just gonna appeal them, doomed though that may be. And so any effort to even give the optics

that they're capitulating or admitting any fault would be completely unacceptable for this administration, given those ongoing prosecutions that they're not going to let die.

You're exactly right. But, Brian, they're tactical imbeciles, because what did they already do? Sent out a mass office-wide email according to the reporting telling everybody okay okay okay get her name off. That is the right thing to do and it is in keeping with the lawful ruling that was handed down by Judge Curry but then you can see somebody thought better of it and they're like you know? We're not gonna abide by that court ruling, put it back on.

So it's kind of the worst of all worlds for the Trump administration.

And for Pam Bondi's deal.

You can see that they've already lost their plausible deniability because they had sent that email out. And then you see that somebody with an ego, somebody, like I wonder who this could be, but somebody with an ego decided to send on the edict, undermining the previous email and just trying to basically say that, you know, we're just going to defy the law, even though we know better because there was

an email sent, but two hours earlier.

And all of this is going to come home to roost because this is going to inspire new litigation. You know, Brian, every single defendant who is being prosecuted by the Eastern District of Virginia U.S. Attorney's Office who sees that there has been a court filing with the inclusion of somebody who is not lawfully part of the case, Lindsay Halligan, that will inspire an attack and you're gonna see a flood of motions to dismiss based on the fact that there is some kind of an interloper who has

been making appearances in these cases by virtue of Lindsey Halligan's name being part of official court filings or pleadings or maybe even indictments. So this is them endangering the people of Virginia who, you know, are being protected and served in, by the prosecutors in that U.S. Attorney's Office.

And that's what we're going to dig into here. But just a quick note for anybody who's watching, if you'd like to support our work, the best way to do that is to subscribe to both of our channels. I'm going to put the links in the post description of this video. Completely free, but a great way to support us and independent media. Glenn, on that point, you got to imagine that the prosecutors who are going in front of the DOJ right now,

recognizing that Lindsey Halligan's name is going to be on those indictments, that they're just frothing at the mouth to be able to ultimately dismiss the cases against their clients because there's an improperly appointed prosecutor who's going to have her name on these documents.

Is that correct? Yeah, Brian, I suspect we're gonna see two things happen moving forward. One, any self-respecting prosecutor, and I have a feeling that is all of the career prosecutors at the Eastern District of Virginia U.S. Attorney's Office, many of whom are still there from my time

as a federal prosecutor in D.C., and I would work together with them when we had cross-border cases involving the same defendant, the same witness, the same aspiring cooperator. I had countless matters in common with that office. They are a crack office, a very good, strong, reputable U.S. Attorney's Office. I suspect you're going to see the career prosecutors say, I don't want my name on an indictment,

on a motion, on a brief, on a pleading that includes an unlawfully appointed, a disqualified interim U.S. attorney, so I will not sign. The second thing I think you're going gonna see happen, Brian, is the federal judges in the Eastern District of Virginia, what we call the Rocket Docket. Let me tell you, they are a no-nonsense group of federal judges.

They will probably begin to strike

Lindsey Halligan's name off every pleading that is filed in a case over which they are presiding. They will say, I am not going to permit the government, the DOJ, to file court pleadings that have the name, a signatory, of somebody who a judge has disqualified because she is not lawfully in the position. So you're going to see a series of consequences. And this is not just sort of a one-day story.

You got to imagine too when the administration is not engaged in vindictive or selective prosecutions that they're actually prosecuting people who deserve prosecution and so when your energy is focused on protecting your ego and making sure that Lindsey Halligan's name can still be on this thing then you endanger these prosecutions for people who presumably shouldn't be on the streets.

And so by virtue of doing this, because again, they just have to massage Donald Trump's fragile ego, all they're doing in effect is keeping us less safe because people who should be prosecuted instead have a giant loophole that they can exploit to make sure that their prosecution doesn't go through.

Public safety is not a priority. It may not even be a goal of Donald Trump's Department of Justice because they are literally endangering, imperiling these prosecutions from successfully moving forward and holding wrongdoers accountable. But again, that's not their focus. That's not their priority. Their priority is to appease dear leader at every turn,

regardless of the implications to any criminal prosecution of doing so.

And finally, Glenn, I want to talk for a moment about what the status is of those disqualified prosecutions as it relates to James Comey and Letitia James. As we know, Donald Trump does not take no for an answer. We can see that on full display right here with his inability to allow Lindsay Halligan's name to be struck from these documents.

So where do we stand in terms of the appeals process for James Comey and Letitia James?

Yeah, great question. Not all dismissed indictments are created equal. And here's what I mean by that. So within 10 days of the dismissal, the government, the DOJ has to file its notice of appeal. So it still has a few days left on the clock,

but they can just go ahead and refile charges against Letitia James, assuming they have a fully qualified federal prosecutor, go into the grand jury, do it, and sign the indictment, which I suspect they will. Although they may just, you know, leave Lindsay Halligan's name on it again

and take advantage of the California Bill of Saleh rule, right, because as long as there's one qualified prosecutor, the indictment should survive. So that'll be another kind of thumb in the eye of the federal judiciary if they do that. But they'll probably go ahead and re-indict Letitia James because it's still within what we call the statute of limitations. There's still time to bring that indictment. I'm not sure what they're

gonna do with the James Comey one. I assume they're going to appeal both, and they may actually wait for the appeal to work its way through the system before they decide if they want to try to refile charges against Comey because his case is no longer within the statute of limitations. It has timed out, and it can't be rebrought unless they win the appeal and the appellate court overturns Judge Curry's dismissal. So they're in somewhat different postures and I expect we may see the two cases treated a little bit differently but we should

know in the coming days when we see a potential notice of appeal filed by the

Department of Justice. Well whatever happens I'm sure that they're going to follow the rules and respect the entire judicial process. That's one thing that we can be absolutely sure of. With that said, for those who are watching right now, if you'd like to follow along with whatever happens on these pieces of news, as well as all other legal news, again, please make sure to subscribe.

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And I'm Glenn Kirshner. And I'm Glenn Kirshner.

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