A judge ruled that yet another lawyer was illegally leading a federal prosecutor’s office in President Donald Trump’s second term. The latest such decision, involving the Los Angeles office, may have limited practical effect. But it shows that if James Comey and Letitia James are similarly successful in their challenges to Lindsey Halligan’s tenure in Virginia, then that could lead to a more meaningful result there.
Federal district judges have ruled that Trump-backed lawyers purporting to lead offices in Nevada (Sigal Chattah) and New Jersey (Alina Habba) were also serving unlawfully under temporary appointments without Senate confirmation. Appellate courts have yet to resolve the issue, and it could ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court, where a ruling would guide how U.S. attorney’s offices operate across the country in Trump’s second term and beyond.
Getting to the practical effects, criminal defendants charged in the Central District of California challenged Trump-installed prosecutor Bill Essayli’s appointment. They argued that their cases should be dismissed. But while U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright deemed Essayli’s tenure unlawful and said he can’t perform any role in prosecuting or supervising the cases, the judge declined to dismiss them.
Importantly, Seabright’s reasoning highlights crucial differences from Halligan’s situation in the Eastern District of Virginia.
Explaining his ruling Tuesday, the George W. Bush appointee noted that the California indictments “did not result from duties or functions that only Essayli could have performed; they were obtained by AUSAs [assistant U.S. attorneys] after presentment to a grand jury, and signed by AUSAs (not by Essayli) exercising powers delegated from the Attorney General.” The judge wrote that “it is undisputed that the indictments here were signed by AUSAs” in compliance with procedural rules. He wrote that “there is no indication that Essayli had any involvement in the indictments” or “in the supervision” of the cases. Underscoring the point, he added, “Everything before the court indicates that the prosecution’s substantive actions have been performed by lawfully appointed AUSAs.”
That is quite different from Halligan’s actions in the Comey and James cases. She was apparently the only prosecutor involved before she brought in other Justice Department lawyers to assist her after she secured the indictments against the former FBI director and the New York attorney general, respectively. Comey’s and James’ cases are earlier in the litigation process, and a district judge has yet to rule on their challenges to the validity of Halligan’s interim appointment. But if the tenure of the Trump-installed prosecutor in Virginia is also deemed unlawful, that could put the Comey and James cases at more serious risk of dismissal. Of course, the legality of Halligan’s appointment is just one of several legal issues the defendants are pressing in those cases that could get them dismissed before trial. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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