Questions have been swirling since Lindsey Halligan took up the mantle as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in late September, especially after she quickly secured indictments against two major opponents of President Donald Trump, her former client from her private legal practice. The legitimacy of her appointment has been under scrutiny. However, according to a recent memo signed by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on Halloween, the Department of Justice (DOJ) claims these questions have become moot.

In a court filing released on Monday, the DOJ opposed the motions by ex-FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James to dismiss charges against them. This filing comes on the heels of a third instance where an acting U.S. attorney was disqualified. The DOJ reiterated a familiar stance: even if Halligan’s interim appointment was not valid, it bears no legal significance.

To better understand this situation, some background is needed. Law&Crime reported that three federal judges have previously ruled against Bondi’s acting appointments in other states. These include Alina Habba in New Jersey, Sigal Chattah in Nevada, and Bilal “Bill” Essayli in California. Each of these appointments was made as their 120-day interim U.S. attorney terms were about to expire, and judges found they did not adhere to legal standards. Despite this, Bondi managed to simultaneously appoint these prosecutors as special attorneys with authority to oversee their respective offices.

The legal challenges have seen different outcomes. While judges determined that Chattah and Habba could not oversee cases against their challengers, Essayli’s situation had a slightly different technical conclusion.

Bilal Essayli, perhaps articulating the strategy best, remarked on Glenn Beck’s show in July, “We’ve got some tricks up our sleeves,” when facing the potential end of his interim U.S. attorney term. Despite initial doubts, he managed to maintain a prominent role and continues to oversee prosecutions as the first assistant U.S. attorney, although not as the acting U.S. attorney.

Perhaps no one put the maneuvering at play clearer than Essayli, as he told Glenn Beck in July, “We’ve got some tricks up our sleeves,” when it appeared the expiration of his interim U.S. attorney stint might be curtains for him. It wasn’t, not for months, and Essayli remains in a top role to the present day, able to supervise prosecutions as first assistant U.S. attorney but not as acting U.S. attorney.

As the Trump administration ramps up appeals of those adverse rulings, the DOJ has taken the sleight-of-hand to another level with Halligan.

Though Halligan was the lone signer of the Comey and James indictments, the possibility that her interim appointment is eventually adjudged “invalid” would not be a technical defect that should lead to the downfall of the prosecutions, the DOJ said. Why? Because Bondi had a backup plan to “ratify” Halligan’s signature, more than a month after the interim appointment and just days ago.

“Even were Ms. Halligan’s appointment invalid, the motions to dismiss should be denied. While Defendants challenge Ms. Halligan’s appointment as interim U.S. Attorney, the actions they challenge do not hinge on her validly holding that particular office,” the latest filing said, pointing to an attached Exhibit A. “Any government attorney can present a case to a grand jury or sign an indictment, and the Attorney General plainly possessed and exercised the authority to make Ms. Halligan a government attorney, as the Attorney General has now confirmed.”

What is Exhibit A? An appointment order naming Halligan a special attorney to avoid any “doubt as to the validity” of the interim appointment, signed on Oct. 31 but applied retroactively to Sept. 22.

Bondi’s special attorney appointment order for Lindsey Halligan was signed on Oct. 31 but applied retroactively to Sept. 22 (Exhibit A).

The order not only authorizes Halligan to “conduct and supervise the prosecutions” of Comey and James as a special attorney, it also claims to “ratify” her “actions before the grand jury and her signature on the indictments returned by the grand jury in each case.”

As Bondi’s counselor Henry Whitaker put it, now that the attorney general has “personally ratified the indictments to obviate any question as to their validity” and “cured any arguable flaw in Ms. Halligan’s authority to prosecute,” there’s no credible Sept. 30, 2025, statute of limitations expiration argument available to Comey.

“Comey may respond that a ratifying principal must have been able to take that action ‘at the time the ratification was made,’ and the statute of limitations for his offenses (but not James’) expired before the Attorney General’s October 31 ratification order,” the filing went on, explaining in detail the potential implications of Bondi’s retroactive special attorney appointment order. “But when a timely filed indictment is ‘dismissed for any reason after the period prescribed by the applicable statute of limitations has expired, a new indictment may be returned in the appropriate jurisdiction within six calendar months of the date of the dismissal of the indictment.’”

“Because the Attorney General could personally obtain a new indictment using that grace period, she may ratify Comey’s existing indictment,” the DOJ added.