A legal expert said Wednesday that interim U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan — despite calls for her to resign — has continued her role.
Legal expert Lisa Rubin told MS NOW's Ana Cabrera that Halligan has not left her position while pressure mounts for her to step down.
"Lindsey Halligan is still in her job and she is signing, or rather, lying," Rubin said. "Prosecutors are signing criminal filings in the Eastern District of Virginia in her name, which is typical."
Those filings have still said Lindsey Halligan, U.S. attorney and special attorney, but it's not the same label Attorney General Pam Bondi gave her in late October, Rubin explained.
"When asked to justify this, the Justice Department has said that its office of legal counsel gave it an opinion that — and wait for this — because it's kind of jaw-dropping, because Judge Cameron Curry and both of her orders in the [James] Comey and [Letitia] James case did not expressly say Lindsey Halligan needed to be removed, then it is totally fine for Lindsey Halligan to continue in her role as interim U.S. attorney, notwithstanding the fact that Judge Curry ruled that her appointment in that capacity was entirely illegitimate and unlawful," Rubin said.
Rubin described what the bold move could mean.
"So it's almost as if she is daring the Judges of the Eastern District of Virginia to take up their own prerogative under the statute and appoint someone of their own choosing that would force a fight, though Anna, between the judges of the district and the person that they choose on the one hand, and the Department of justice, which is still aligning itself with Lindsay Halligan on the other," Rubin added. "And that's why you have situations like The New York Times reported on yesterday, with Senior Judge Leonie Brinkema saying the right result here is just for Halligan to resign."
