'Another Trump lawyer will bite the dust': Watergate prosecutor makes major new prediction

Attorney Nick Akerman, who served as a prosecutor with the Watergate investigation, made a stunning prediction Wednesday on how the Trump administration’s prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey may play out, and one that ends poorly for a one particular Trump appointee.

Comey is being arraigned Wednesday after being indicted by the Justice Department for allegedly making false statements to Congress, an indictment that came just days after President Donald Trump personally urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute the former FBI director.

Comey’s arraignment will be held in the Eastern District of Virginia, where one Lindsey Halligan currently serves as interim U.S. attorney – a post she was appointed to by Trump and has since been nominated by the president to hold permanently.

Akerman argued that Halligan’s lack of prosecutorial experience, however, coupled with what he called her “willful blind loyalty to Trump,” will ultimately cause the case to collapse, and leave her as collateral damage.

“Ms. Halligan, who at best purports to be an insurance lawyer, should know something about risk,” Akerman wrote on his Substack Wednesday.

“Her total incompetence and willful blind loyalty to Trump in bringing the Comey indictment makes her a prime candidate for disbarment. She will not be the first, nor likely the last, Trump lawyer to lose her law license for blindly following the whims of Donald Trump.”

Before Comey’s indictment, the Trump administration fired prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia, and, according to reports, because they refused to bring charges against the former FBI director. A Trump loyalist, Halligan was installed by Trump shortly thereafter, and complied with Trump’s plea to bring criminal charges against Comey.

But for Akerman, Halligan’s willingness to pursue what he called “bogus” charges against Comey in accordance with Trump’s wishes was a clear ethical violation that made her a prime candidate for disbarment, and for the case against Comey to be dismissed.

“What happens when the President of the United States appoints a charlatan in charge of the United States attorneys office in the Eastern District of Virginia to prosecute his political enemies?” Akerman wrote.

“You get the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey that does not comply with basic United States Supreme Court law. Halligan pursued and filed charges against Comey that are bogus and should result in a dismissal before the case ever reaches a jury trial. She did so, even though the former Trump appointed U.S. Attorney determined there was no valid case against Comey.”

In an associated op-ed also published Wednesday in the New York Daily News, Akerman further argued that the entire crux of Comey’s indictment – that he lied to Congress while under oath – was without merit, and that the DOJ’s case would all but certainly implode on itself.