When Donald Trump has an important personnel decision to make, the president too often looks to people he knows personally, as if he were the head of a social club and its members are entitled to certain perks — such as powerful positions in the executive branch of a global superpower.
This is especially true for the Republican’s former lawyers.
Pam Bondi was part of one of Trump’s legal teams, and she’s the attorney general. Todd Blanche was one of his criminal defense attorneys, and he’s now helping lead the Justice Department. Emil Bove represented Trump before being tapped to serve as the principal associate deputy attorney general, and he’s now a federal judge. D. John Sauer was also a Trump lawyer, and the president tapped him to serve as the solicitor general. Alina Habba was also a member of Trump’s legal team, and he tapped her to serve as an interim U.S. attorney.
The list is still growing. NBC News reported:
Lindsey Halligan, a former insurance lawyer and member of Trump’s legal team, was officially named interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Justice Department officials told NBC News today. Attorney General Pam Bondi swore in Halligan around noon at Justice Department headquarters in Washington. Halligan was part of the legal circle representing Trump in the Mar-a-Lago classified records case brought by special counsel Jack Smith.
In a normal administration, it’s a priority to find attorneys with prosecutorial experience to lead offices like these. In this instance, however, Trump told Bondi to appoint Halligan to oversee a key U.S. attorney’s office — this is a district that handles many of the country’s sensitive national security cases — despite the fact that she’s never been a prosecutor, and the 36-year-old lawyer’s White House work has largely focused on leading the administration’s campaign against the Smithsonian Institution.
In other words, Halligan, whose background is in insurance law, obviously isn’t qualified — though, given Trump’s perspective, that probably made her more appealing, not less.
What’s more, let’s not lose sight of the fact that Halligan is replacing Erik Siebert, the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and a Trump nominee, whom the president forced out late last week because he wouldn’t bring baseless criminal charges against Trump’s political enemies. The circumstances suggest Halligan will be expected to do what Siebert would not: corrupt the legal process to satisfy Trump’s desperate need for revenge. Finally, there’s an important congressional dimension to this. As an interim U.S. attorney, Halligan can serve for only 120 days. While Trump has nominated her to fill the role permanently, the Senate’s “blue slip” process suggests that Halligan would need the support of Virginia’s two Democratic senators, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, which seems unlikely, especially if she spends the next few months pursuing baseless cases against White House foes. Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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