A federal judge in Virginia suggested on Tuesday that Lindsey Halligan should resign as U.S. attorney after a ruling declared her appointment unlawful, making her the third jurist to challenge Ms. Halligan’s continued claim to the post.
Ms. Halligan was handpicked by President Trump to oversee the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia after career prosecutors there resisted pressure to bring criminal charges against James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and Letitia James, the attorney general of New York.
Once appointed to the job, Ms. Halligan quickly secured indictments of both, but a federal judge dismissed those indictments on procedural grounds in November, ruling that the Trump administration had violated the law for filling vacancies for federal positions.
Still, Ms. Halligan remains listed as the U.S. attorney on court filings, drawing the attention of judges and magistrate judges in recent days.
During the hearing on Tuesday, the judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, pressed a federal prosecutor to explain why Ms. Halligan’s name remained on such filings, despite the court ruling last month. The judge noted that the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Alina Habba, who was appointed in a similarly unorthodox manner and was similarly found by the courts to be serving unlawfully, had resigned on Monday.
“That’s the proper position, in my view,” Judge Brinkema said. The judge also questioned whether there was any legal guidance issued by the Justice Department to explain why Ms. Halligan was still in the job.
The lawyer representing the government said only that the staff of the Eastern District of Virginia had been told in an email to keep using Ms. Halligan’s name as the U.S. attorney.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
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