Contrary to this Court’s suggestion, nothing in the Comey and James dismissal orders
prohibits Ms. Halligan from performing the functions of or holding herself out as the United
States Attorney. Although Judge Currie concluded that Ms. Halligan was unlawfully appointed
under Section 546, she did not purport to enjoin Ms. Halligan from continuing to oversee the
office or from identifying herself as the United States Attorney in the Government’s signature
blocks. Indeed, Judge Currie did not issue any remedy beyond those two cases—she simply
dismissed the indictments without prejudice. Comey, ECF No. 213 at 28–29; James, ECF No.
140 at 25–26; see Dismissal, Black’s Law Dictionary (12th ed. 2024) (Dismissal is the
“[t]ermination of an action, claim, or charge.”). In fact, Judge Currie rejected the defendant’s
request in James to enjoin Ms. Halligan from performing any “functions or duties of an interim
U.S. Attorney,” James, ECF No. 22 at 16. See James, ECF No. 140 at 25......

It is the United States’ position that Ms. Halligan was properly appointed as interim
United States Attorney—a position the United States has maintained in part based on internal
legal advice from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. That Judge Currie
dismissed two indictments based on her disagreement with that position does not prevent the
United States from otherwise maintaining it. Furthermore, the Court’s invocation of
professional ethics rules reflects a fundamental category error. Ethical rules regulate attorney
conduct – not the Government’s adoption or maintenance of a contested legal position.
Charging disagreement with a court’s interpretation of federal law, particularly where that
interpretation is on appeal, as professional misconduct would turn advocacy itself into a
sanctionable ethics violation. .....

To answer the Court’s inquisition directly: “the basis for Ms. Halligan’s identification
of herself as the United States Attorney, notwithstanding Judge Currie’s contrary ruling” is
that, in the Government’s view, Ms. Halligan is the United States Attorney, and Judge Currie’s
ruling did not and could not require the United States to acquiesce to her contrary (and
erroneous) legal reasoning outside of those cases. “[T]he reasons why this Court should not
strike Ms. Halligan’s identification of herself as United States Attorney from the indictment in
this matter” are that no authority exists for a court to strike an attorney title out of a signature
block, and certainly not on its own motion.

Finally, Ms. Halligan’s “identification does not constitute a false or misleading
statement.” It is correct and consistent with the Department of Justice’s internal guidance, and
at minimum reflects a contested legal position that the United States is entitled to maintain
notwithstanding a single district judge’s contrary view. For these reasons, the Court should
deem this response sufficient, withdraw its January 6, 2026 order, and permit this prosecution
to proceed without further collateral inquiry into matters beyond the Court’s authority.

Courtroom drama unfurled on the docket Monday, as disqualified acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan joined up with Justice Department leaders Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche to write a furious brief punching back at U.S. District Judge David Novak, himself an appointee of President Donald Trump.

Halligan was disqualified from office after a court determined that the process the DOJ used to slot her in after the previous U.S. attorney was ousted was illegal — a move that blew up the Trump administration's politically-charged prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Several other Trump prosecutors appointed this way have also been disqualified, including Alina Habba in New Jersey, John Sarcone in New York, and Sigal Chattah in Nevada.

Despite this, Halligan has continued to work in the office and identify herself as a U.S. attorney. This drew the scrutiny of Novak, who ordered Halligan to explain why she is still using a federal title she does not have.

Halligan, Bondi, and Blanche responded with a scathing 11-page brief that accused Novak of not knowing what he's talking about and abusing his office.

"In violation of the Rules of Criminal Procedure and the principle of party presentation, the Court has initiated a sua sponte inquisition into whether it should strike Ms. Halligan’s title from the Government’s signature block," stated the brief. "The order launching this quest reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of Judge Currie’s orders dismissing the indictments in United States v. Comey and United States v. James, and flouts no fewer than three separate lines of Supreme Court precedent on elementary principles like the role of federal courts, the effect of district court rulings, and the nature of our adversarial system.".....

The adversarial language in the brief stunned All Rise News' Adam Klasfeld, who weighed in on the controversy on X.

"In this document, Halligan — fully backed by the top DOJ officials — characterizes Trump-appointed Judge Novak's order as an 'inquisition.' They call it an 'insult,' the judge's mere 'fixation,' 'gross abuse of power,' and a 'cudgel' against the executive branch. They accuse him of making 'rudimentary error,'" wrote Klasfeld.

"To put it mildly, this isn't the type of language one typically sees by a party addressing a judge."

The Justice Department responded defiantly Tuesday to an order from a federal judge directing Lindsey Halligan to explain why she continues to use the title U.S. attorney in Virginia despite another judge’s ruling that her appointment was unconstitutional.

In a response signed by Halligan, the Justice Department opposed U.S. District Judge David Novak, who demanded last week that Halligan account for why she continues to use the U.S. attorney title in court filings. Novak, a Richmond judge who Trump nominated to the bench in 2019, suggested Halligan’s use of the title could amount to false or misleading statements.

“The bottom line is that Ms. Halligan has not ‘misrepresented’ anything and the Court is flat wrong to suggest that any change to the Government’s signature block is warranted in this or any other case,” the response said.

The response, which accuses Novak of making “rudimentary” legal errors and missing “elementary” legal principles, is written in a derisive tone unusual for a government lawyer addressing a federal judge.....

Several other judges in the Eastern District have called for Halligan’s name and U.S. attorney title to be struck from court filings.

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema, who supervises the Alexandria, Virginia, courthouse, on Friday struck Halligan’s name from a case, commenting that “she should resign from the position at this point.”

In November, U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ruled that Halligan’s appointment as interim U.S. attorney was invalid because of an unusual maneuver the Trump administration used to install her. Trump had previously appointed an interim prosecutor to lead the office, Erik S. Siebert, at the start of his term in January 2025. Siebert was forced out in September after declining to seek charges against former FBI director James B. Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. Career prosecutors had recommended against pursuing the two cases because of insufficient evidence of wrongdoing.

A federal judge ruled in November that Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully installed by the Trump administration as the top federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia. That led a different judge to order Halligan to explain why she kept calling herself the district’s U.S. attorney in court papers.

Among her defenses: Jack Smith did it, too.

In her response Tuesday, Halligan recalled that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Donald Trump’s classified documents indictment in Florida on the grounds that Smith was unlawfully appointed as special counsel. “Yet in the days and weeks that followed, the Government continued — openly and without objection by any Court — to file documents identifying Jack Smith by his title as Special Counsel while appellate review proceeded,” Halligan wrote.

She added that Smith continued to refer to himself as special counsel in Trump’s separate election interference case in Washington, D.C., and that “as far as the Government is aware, no court — much less any judge — ever threatened Smith with attorney discipline for making purportedly ‘false or misleading statement[s],’ ‘knowingly disobey[ing]’ a court order, or engaging in ‘professional misconduct,’” Halligan wrote, referring to the order that demanded her response, which was issued by U.S. District Judge David Novak, a Trump appointee in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Yet Cannon’s 2024 order dismissing the documents indictment specified that it was “confined to this proceeding” in the Florida case, so it’s unclear how it could’ve led Smith to think he couldn’t refer to himself as special counsel in D.C., where Cannon’s ruling would not apply anyway..

But that general notion wouldn’t make much sense to apply in this situation, where Currie was seemingly brought in to resolve the issue across the board throughout the district. When dealing with the lawfulness of a U.S. attorney’s appointment, a judge will be brought in from outside the district, apparently to avoid a conflict because the judges in a given district have the power to appoint replacement U.S. attorneys when there’s a vacancy. So unless Currie or some other out-of-district judge is going to be brought in to resolve the legality of Halligan’s tenure whenever a new defendant challenges it, it would make sense to consider her ruling as binding throughout the district unless it’s overturned on appeal.