Lawrence O’Donnell doesn’t hold back on Lindsey Halligan: “She was apparently lost throughout the proceeding”
MSNBC host skewers Trump’s handpicked prosecutor after her faltering debut in the Comey arraignment.
Lawrence O’Donnell opened The Last Word with a scathing assessment of Lindsey Halligan’s first day as a federal prosecutor. “She said two words – and only two,” O’Donnell told viewers, describing how Halligan failed even to identify herself properly in court. “She proved once again today that she knows absolutely nothing about prosecuting anything.”
Halligan out of her depth?
Halligan, a former insurance lawyer who served in the Trump White House, was appointed interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia just before bringing the indictment against former FBI director James Comey. Her appearance, O’Donnell said, “projected the chaos and incompetence that defines Trump’s legal team.”
Comey’s lawyers plan to challenge her appointment
In court, Comey’s attorney Patrick Fitzgerald announced plans to contest Halligan’s authority, arguing that her appointment violates the Federal Vacancies Reform Act. That motion will go before a judge from another district, while the trial remains scheduled for January.
A junior prosecutor imported from North Carolina admitted the government was “still getting its hands around discovery,” prompting Judge Michael Nachmanoff to reply that he was “a little skeptical” since the case contained only two counts. According to The New York Times, Halligan spent the hearing “rocking and nodding in her chair,” leaving O’Donnell to conclude she was “apparently lost throughout the proceeding.”
A broader pattern under Trump
O’Donnell tied Halligan’s struggles to a string of failed Trump-era appointments, including Alina Habba and Sigal Chattah, both ruled unlawfully serving as U.S. attorneys. “Trump,” he said, “is appointing loyalists, not lawyers.”
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