Donald Trump’s handpicked U.S. attorneys appear to be under threat. On Monday, a federal appeals court considered whether Alina Habba, the president’s former personal lawyer, is unlawfully serving as the acting U.S. attorney in New Jersey.
A ruling against the administration could have huge implications for several of Trump’s appointments across the country, including in the Eastern District of Virginia, where he named Lindsey Halligan as top prosecutor.
Since taking the job late last month, Halligan, who also served as a former personal lawyer for the president, has filed high-profile cases against former FBI Director James Comey and Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James.
On Tuesday’s “Deadline: White House,” Nicolle Wallace reacted to the Habba hearing and the possible domino effect it could have on Trump’s retribution efforts. Wallace said the president’s “reckless campaign to wreck the rule of law” was now “wobbling a bit like a Jenga tower that got a little too tall.”
Wallace said that the “two pillars of Trump’s retribution campaign,” the cases against Comey and James, are on the verge of collapsing because the administration “hastily put inexperienced loyalists in the positions of U.S. attorneys without any regard for the law.”
However, as Wallace noted, the Habba appeal isn’t the only threat to Halligan’s appointment, which she argued “might be in danger even before any court rules.” The MSNBC host pointed to a new report from Anna Bower at Lawfare, who shared a Signal exchange she had with Halligan regarding the grand jury in the New York attorney general’s case.
According to Bower, Halligan had contacted her to complain about an X post, in which the Lawfare reporter posted a summary of recent reporting from The New York Times on the case. During their exchange, Bower said Halligan sent messages that “touched on grand jury matters, even as she insisted that she could not reveal such information, which is protected from disclosure by prosecutors under federal law.” “I don’t know whether to deal with the legal issues or the stupidity first,” Wallace said. “But the stupidity is just unbelievable here.” The MSNBC host said that while Halligan may “legitimately not understand” on-the-record versus off-the-record conversations with a journalist, discussing grand jury matters with anyone outside of the Justice Department was unacceptable. “Sharing grand jury information, to me, seems like something that even in this bizarre Earth 2 world could get Lindsey Halligan called into the principal’s office,” she said. You can watch Wallace’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.
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