Lindsey Halligan, the US attorney overseeing the prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey, once warned that the Department of Justice risked becoming a tool for political revenge. Today, Halligan is drawing criticism for leading one of the most politically charged prosecutions in decades.
Last week, Halligan brought charges against Comey for allegedly lying under oath to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding. The grand jury indictment came less than a week after President Donald Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute his political rivals — specifically naming Comey, Sen. Adam Schiff, and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
“They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
But Halligan’s own record and the circumstances around her appointment raise questions about the true motivations at play. The case revives a long-running feud between Trump and Comey, who as FBI director helped lead the investigation into Trump’s campaign ties to Russia before Trump fired him in May 2017.
A White House aide who previously worked on Trump’s legal team, Halligan has never been a prosecutor. But as a former member of Trump’s legal team, she has a long record of speaking out against the threat of politically motivated prosecutions.
CNN’s KFile reviewed dozens of Halligan’s media appearances, in which she blasted the justice system as “corrupt’” over its investigations into Trump for hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and likened probes into him to “election interference.”
In the interviews Halligan described what she said was a lack of transparency by the FBI after its August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago, where agents discovered 33 boxes, some filled with classified documents, as “the first step to tyranny.” In its June 2023 indictment of Trump, the Department of Justice charged Trump with violating the Espionage Act.
Halligan warned that prosecuting political figures would “unravel” the legal system and accused New York City of running a “show trial” against Trump, referencing the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, in which Trump was convicted in May 2024 on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records related to hush money payments.
“It’s up to the sitting president to ensure that our criminal system does not unravel into retaliatory or political prosecutions of former presidents and other government officials,” Halligan told Fox News in August 2022, referring to then-President Joe Biden after the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. “Just imagine what if it is now protocol for a new president of the United States to prosecute his or her predecessor.”
A Department of Justice spokesperson official told CNN, “No one is above the law. This Department of Justice will continue to follow the facts and hold those who abuse positions of power accountable.”
And a person familiar Halligan’s decision to charge Comey told CNN the case was not political and was based on facts and evidence, including new material that the person said previous prosecutors had not seen. The person added that Halligan would not have proceeded if the case lacked merit, and that she worked closely with the FBI to bring the case.
The person also argued that Halligan did not try to make a show of Comey’s indictment, saying she decided not to do a perp walk, raid, arrest, TV appearances, interviews or any spectacle — and said there was no special treatment either way. The person argued that efforts to frame the case as political were misplaced, criticized media speculation as uninformed, and said that the full picture would come out eventually in court.
But the circumstances of the Comey’s grandy jury indictment differ sharply from the cases against Trump.
Those indictments were led by a special counsel, not a Biden-appointed US attorney. By comparison, the case against Comey is being brought by a Trump loyalist who was installed after her predecessor declined to bring charges. Though Biden occasionally commented on investigations in ways critics said broke with DOJ norms, as president he consistently stressed DOJ independence, a sharp difference from Trump publicly calling for prosecutions of his political adversaries.
Halligan, a former Florida insurance attorney, now leads one of the most powerful US attorney’s offices in the country. And in one of her first major actions as interim leader, she indicted one of Trump’s political foes — a move that stands in stark contrast to her past rhetoric.
In August 2022, Halligan told Fox News that Americans across the political spectrum opposed an “overreaching” Justice Department and “out of control” Biden administration after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago.
“Well, if we’re thinking about the future, I’d like to just say that the Biden administration has united Americans against its administration. This incident has ironically created bipartisanship on this issue, because no American, whether Democrat or Republican, wants an overreaching Department of Justice.”
“The government seems to be out of control. It’s plagued with manipulation, corruption, greed, deceit and fraud,” she added.
‘A Sense of disgrace’ at Smithsonian
Halligan’s influence extends beyond her appointment as a US attorney and time as Trump’s personal lawyer.
After joining the Trump administration in January as a staff secretary, she was soon tasked with reshaping one of the nation’s most venerable cultural institutions, The Smithsonian.
In March 2025, President Trump signed an executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” that explicitly named Halligan in the text. The order directed her, in consultation with Vice President JD Vance, to monitor Smithsonian museums, research centers, and the National Zoo and to seek “to remove improper ideology” from their exhibits and programs.
In an August radio interview, Halligan complained that the National Museum of American History covered American colonization, saying “what you see is all negativity,” instead of featuring exhibits that celebrate Black athletes and musician Stevie Wonder.
“You don’t see any exhibit celebrating any people like Michael Jordan, Stevie Wonder, Tiger Woods, Venus or Serena Williams,” said Halligan “And it’s bizarre. Instead what you see is all negativity. Comments about colonization. Really just a hatred for our country, and we need to start celebrating greatness again.”
“Right now when you walk in the museums and you walk out, you feel a sense of disgrace for our country,” she added. “You feel depressed, you feel uncomfortable, and that’s not what our federal institution should do. We should be inspiring Americans.”
Halligan said the attempts to force changes to the institutions were not about “whitewashing” but appreciating America’s full history.
“When I moved to DC for this job, I went to the Smithsonian and I saw a lot of just politically charged and ideologically based narratives that have no place in a federal institution that’s over 70% funded by taxpayers,” she said. “I know we’re getting accused of whitewashing, but it’s actually not whitewashing at all. It’s all about context. So we want to give the full context, the full accuracy of the picture, of all of our colored history, but also not demean America as a whole.”
“And I think all museum curators should really be focused on what inspires a child when they walk through a museum,” she added. “What inspires an adult? Is it seeing Michael Jordan, who was cut from his high school basketball team, but then goes on to be the best basketball player ever? Even Elon Musk, who was a South African immigrant who has changed the whole landscape of energy, cars and space.”