'Difficult to overstate the damage': Judge's striking rebuke of AG Bondi's DOJ instantly shows up in a bar complaint

Source: Law & Crime

Nov 11th, 2025, 2:45 pm


Several days after a U.S. magistrate judge criticized U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's Justice Department for an "indict first, investigate later" mentality in the prosecution of ex-FBI Director James Comey, a bar complaint has been filed against the controversially appointed rookie prosecutor who secured the indictment.

Left-leaning watchdog group Campaign for Accountability's (CfA) bar complaint, filed Tuesday against interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan, accused the former defense attorney for President Donald Trump of violating the Rules of Professional Conduct, similar in approach to allegations that New York Attorney General Letitia James' attorneys levied in recent weeks.

The group, which brought a complaint against a different Bondi "special attorney" in August, asserted that Halligan's widely publicized berating of Lawfare's Anna Bower on Signal about the pending James prosecution — and her decision to seek indictments against the NYAG and Comey when career prosecutors believed the evidence against Trump's rivals was insufficient — together warrant the scrutiny of the Florida Bar and the Virginia Bar.

"Once in office, Ms. Halligan reportedly disregarded the conclusions of numerous experienced career prosecutors who had thoroughly investigated [Mr.] Comey's statements and found prosecution unsupportable. She then rushed to indict Mr. Comey in just four days, apparently failing to properly analyze the testimony at issue, the result of which was that she failed to recognize Mr. Comey's statements were literally true or at least not provably false," the complaint said. "Similarly, it has been reported that Ms. Halligan disregarded the conclusions of numerous experienced career prosecutors who had thoroughly investigated Ms. James's mortgage documents and found prosecution unsupportable.

Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/judges-searing-critique-of-bondis-doj-instantly-showed-up-in-a-bar-complaint/