Attorney Lindsey Halligan on Newsmax on August 29, 2025

Interim U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan – who President Donald Trump installed in late September — may have completely circumvented Attorney General Pam Bondi in her latest high-profile indictment. One former U.S. attorney emphasized that such a move would be "funky" and "nuts."

ABC News reported Friday that Bondi was reportedly "caught off guard" by the news that Halligan indicted New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) on Thursday. Senior Department of Justice (DOJ) leadership hadn't been informed that Halligan was presenting evidence to a grand jury until after the fact.

During a Friday interview with CNN host Brianna Keilar, former U.S. attorney Harry Litman (an appointee of former President Bill Clinton) argued that the details over James' indictment were growing "stranger and stranger," especially with the news that Halligan had been apparently keeping Bondi "at arms' length."

"All the evidence seems very strong that it was directed or it was in order to satisfy Trump's urge for a reprisal prosecution," Litman said. "Lindsey Halligan is his private attorney. Did she just completely bypass DOJ leadership and go directly to the top? That would be very anomalous and improper."

As Litman mentioned, Halligan is a former insurance lawyer who Trump ended up hiring on his legal team in the case involving his alleged mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. That case never went to trial, as U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon (who Trump appointed to a lifetime post in 2020) dismissed the charges in July of 2024. This means Halligan – who also indicted former FBI Director James Comey in late September — has almost no courtroom experience, and is nonetheless reportedly keeping the DOJ in the dark about criminally charging Trump's political opponents.

"Anyway you slice it something really weird happened here," Litman said. "Possibly she wants Bondi to have deniability, but we're going to have a focus here as we did in Comey about the reasons for doing this prosecution. Was it reprisal or not? And thats gonna engage leadership of DOJ, if she somehow did this on her own."

"Remember, she has zero experience. She doesn't know where the door is," he added. "That's gonna be, funky would be the legal term. Just really nuts."

Halligan is less than a month into her role after Trump fired her predecessor, Erik Siebert, who he himself appointed to head the Eastern District of Virginia this spring. Siebert was driven out of his position after refusing to bring charges against Comey, James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who led impeachment proceedings against Trump.

Watch Litman's segment below:

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