Donald Trump wants to crush The Swamp. The leaks, the sneaks, and the secrets are all there. Our writers, David Gardner, Farrah Tomazin, and Sarah Ewall-Wice, are sifting through the ooze so you don’t have to. Don’t miss out.
Donald Trump’s new favorite Mean Girl, one-time beauty contestant Lindsey Halligan, shares more than just a friendship with Karoline Leavitt. At 36, the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia was remarkably unqualified for the job heading up the “Rocket Docket”, the fastest federal trials court in the country. Age certainly hasn’t hindered Leavitt, 28, whose “machine gun lips” have made her invaluable as the president’s attack dog press secretary.
But while Leavitt has been sure-footed in her role in the administration’s first nine months, Halligan has been busy shooting herself in the foot.
The latest misstep is a threat to launch a leak investigation into her own prosecutors. According to MSNBC, Halligan has nagged her “rattled” leadership team to bring a quick prosecution against a Democratic state lawmaker after indicting two of Trump’s top targets—New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. When asked by MSNBC for her comments, Halligan responded in a way that is hardly going to endear her to worried departmental attorneys by threatening her own staff. “EDVA enforces a strict zero-tolerance policy on the unauthorized disclosure of information concerning ongoing investigations or cases,” she said. “Such leaks will be investigated to the maximum extent permitted by law.”
On Tuesday, Halligan’s rookie dealings with journalists were revealed after she tried to claim a series of text messages she shared with Lawfare senior editor Anna Bower were “off the record” after the fact. The embarrassing debacle only fueled speculation in her office that Halligan is out of her depth. Until she was appointed last month, Halligan had never prosecuted a case, and her first job was as an insurance lawyer before she was plucked from obscurity to become one of Trump’s personal attorneys. She was raised in Broomfield, Colorado, and went to the Jesuit Regis University in Denver and the University of Miami, but a clue to her relatively fast rise through the legal ranks may lie in her attempts to win the Miss Colorado USA pageant, reaching the semi-final in 2009 and third-place the following year.
The Swamp is told that Halligan became friends at Regis University with Erika Frantzve, who went on to become Miss Arizona and then Mrs. Charlie Kirk. Erika now runs Kirk’s Turning Point USA organization. Frantzve came fourth to Halligan’s third in the Miss Colorado pageant in 2010.
“Sports and pageants taught me confidence, discipline, and how to handle pressure—on the court, on the field, on the stage, in the courtroom, and now in the White House,” Halligan told the Washington Post. The Miss Colorado pageant was a feeder for Trump’s Miss Universe, and Halligan, then a lawyer, met him at Mar-a-Lago in 2021, the Post reported. The president has made no secret of his penchant for beauty queens. Still, Halligan’s not winning any Miss Congeniality contests. But maybe the president can seek her views on world peace.
This exclusive extract from this week’s edition of The Swamp is just a taste of the delicious secrets we reveal every week. Sign up here to never miss an edition.
The post MAGA Beauty Queen’s Threat to Prosecute Her Own Prosecutors appeared first on The Daily Beast.
