Interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan is reeling after a judge needled her over the messy indictment of James Comey.
The beauty queen-turned-prosecutor shot back after federal judge Michael Nachmanoff, a Biden appointee, suggested that she acted as a “puppet” for President Donald Trump in the case brought against the former FBI director.
“Personal attacks, like Judge Nachmanoff referring to me as a ‘puppet,’ don’t change the facts or the law,” Halligan told the New York Post on Wednesday.
During a testy hearing in Virginia, Comey’s attorney Michael Dreeben accused Halligan of acting on Trump’s command—a charge that the judge appeared to agree with, according to an account by The New York Times.
“The president of the United States has caused the executive branch to prosecute a perceived enemy,” Dreeben said, citing a message from Trump addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi that the president inadvertently posted on his public Truth Social account last month.
In the lengthy diatribe, Trump demanded that the Justice Department prosecute his foes, writing, “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.” Comey was indicted five days later on accusations that he lied to Congress during a hearing in 2020.
“So Ms. Halligan was the stalking horse, or to use a different word—a puppet—for the president?” Nachmanoff asked Dreeben.
Dreeben responded that he didn’t want to call anyone names, but believed that Halligan “did what she was told.”
The MAGA beauty queen, 36, who had no prior prosecutorial experience before her appointment as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, lashed out at the judge in an interview with the Post.
“The Judicial Canons require judges to be ‘patient, dignified, respectful, and courteous to litigants, jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and others with whom the judge deals in an official capacity’ … and to ‘act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary,’” she said.
“My focus remains on the record and the law, and I will continue to fulfill my responsibilities with professionalism,” she added.
The Daily Beast has also reached out to Halligan’s office for comment.
Prosecutor Tyler Lemons also pushed back in court, arguing that Comey’s lawyer was making “inferential leaps” and that there was “no proof” Halligan took Trump’s post “as a charge.”
“Ms. Halligan was not a puppet,” he said.
The Justice Department suffered a fresh blow in the Comey case after prosecutors admitted that they never showed the grand jury the final version of the indictment before it was signed by the foreperson.
Lemons revealed in a jaw-dropping exchange detailed by CNN that the Justice Department brought an alternative version of the indictment for the foreperson to sign after the jury declined to approve one count.
Nachmanoff asked: “Am I correct that the new document was never presented to the grand jury for approval?”
“I wasn’t there, but that is my understanding,” Lemons responded. Halligan later confirmed that to the judge.
Comey’s lawyers quickly pounced on the revelation as further proof that the charges should be thrown out.
“This has to stop,” Dreeben told the judge. “This court is the first to confront the issue of whether a message needs to be sent to the executive branch.”
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