Federal agents have raided the office of a Virginia Democratic legislator who was instrumental to her party possibly picking up four additional congressional seats.
The FBI served multiple search warrants at the office of state Sen. L. Louise Lucas in Portsmouth as part of what sources described as a major corruption investigation, and MS NOW's Carol Leonnig reported that former interim U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan had made an investigation of the 82-year-old lawmaker a top priority.
"Louise Lucas is a statefairly prominent legislator inher state, but not knownnationally, and the FBI and the Department of Justice have beeninvestigating her for severalyears, three years, I'm told bya source familiar with theprobe," Leonnig said, "and that investigationhas been looking at evidencesuggesting that she solicitedor accepted bribes."
Leonnig reported that Halligan believed that prosecuting a prominent Democrat in the state would be political beneficial to Republicans.
"I'm told by this source, andthis has been ongoing for sometime," Leonnig said, "that when Lindsey Halligan, one of [President Donald] Trump's veryclosest allies and a formerlawyer of his, had been running the U.S. attorney's office inthe Eastern District of Virginia, she had beenpressuring and pushingprosecutors to bring chargesagainst Lucas, believing thatthat would be important, a high-priority case."
"I'm told that Halligan believed it would begood for the White House to beable, before the midterms, toaccuse a prominent state Democrat in Virginia withbribery," she added.
Lucas, the Senate president pro tempore, pushed for her fellow Democrats to push for four additional seats, rather than just three, on a mid-decade redistricting map aimed at boosting the party's chances in November's midterms.
"Prosecutors in based out of Norfolk were not sure this wasthe strongest case in the world, but Halligan felt very stronglythat it should be pressed," Leonnig said. "Now,of course, this action by theFBI, as reported by Fox News,is embarrassing to Lucas,embarrassing to the Democratic Party and also to the governorof that state, because Lucas isa close ally of hers, and nowwhat we know from this is theprobe is really quite active.But as for charges, we shallsee. They may be sealed at thismoment, or they may never come.We're somewhere in the middleof those two."
Halligan departed the job after a federal job concluded she had overstayed her interim appointment, and Leonnig said she would not be permitted to be involved in this case.
"It wouldbe inappropriate for her to beinvolved as she departed as theinterim U.S. attorney, afterfederal judge concluded that Halligan's indictments ofvarious people Trump hadtargeted were to be dismissedbecause she had been illegallyappointed, running far outsidethe 120-day period for a U.S.attorney to be appointed,nominated and confirmed by the Senate," Leonnig said.
