Lindsey Halligan, the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia appointed by President Donald Trump, is facing new scrutiny after a reporter posted private messages Halligan sent to her.
However, legal experts say the exchange was, at worst, an unpolished effort by an inexperienced prosecutor to counter faulty reporting, not a breach of ethics. According to screenshots published by Lawfare, Halligan contacted reporter Anna Bower on Oct. 11 through the encrypted messaging app Signal to dispute portions of Bower’s coverage of the government’s indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James (D).
“Anna, Lindsey Halligan here,” she wrote. “You are reporting things that are simply not true. Thought you should have a heads up.”
The two exchanged intermittent messages over roughly 33 hours, with Halligan insisting Bower had misrepresented facts drawn from a New York Times story about the grand-jury testimony of James’s grand-niece. Halligan urged the reporter to read the indictment for herself but added, “I can’t tell you grand-jury stuff,” signaling awareness of confidentiality limits.
Why the Signal text exchange matters
The Lawfare piece that first disclosed the texts cast Halligan’s outreach as a potential ethical lapse, though it cited no legal experts to support that claim.
“Even now, I remain mystified by Halligan’s texts to me,” Bower wrote. “She is currently the most scrutinized prosecutor in the country, widely seen as hand-picked to prosecute her boss’s political enemies. Even the slightest misstep could be seized on and picked apart by defense counsel representing James, who analysts expect will seek dismissal of her charges based on selective or vindictive prosecution.”
That description has fueled social media criticism of Halligan, but a review of the texts by the Washington Examiner and interviews with multiple former federal prosecutors indicate no clear violation of law or ethics.
Experts: ‘Much ado about nothing’
Former federal prosecutor David Gelman said the episode was “a nothing burger” that Democrats and left-leaning outlets were inflating for political effect.
“Is it ethically wrong? No, not at all,” Gelman told the Washington Examiner. “Would I personally text a reporter over Signal? No, but that’s just not my style. There’s literally no ethical issue whatsoever. Halligan didn’t reveal grand-jury material or prejudice the case. It’s the Left trying to play it out as a Trump-appointed individual messing up, and it’s far from it.”
Gelman said Halligan’s messages merely showed her “telling a reporter to do better homework,” adding that she was careful not to disclose protected evidence. “It’s much ado about nothing,” he said.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani echoed that view, saying the exchange revealed “inexperience more than misconduct.”
“There is no clear violation, but it shows Halligan’s inexperience,” Rahmani said. “Prosecutors can’t disclose grand-jury material, and it doesn’t appear that Halligan did. Disappearing Signal messages aren’t common, but we’re seeing more government officials use them. So it’s really just a U.S. attorney that has no prosecution experience and isn’t used to dealing with the media, more than a legal or ethical violation.”
DOJ defends Halligan
The DOJ later appeared to certify the authenticity of the texts in a statement from a spokesperson who spoke to Lawfare.
A department spokesperson defended the Trump-appointed prosecutor in a statement to the Washington Examiner, saying, “Lindsey Halligan is doing an outstanding job making Virginia safe again and won’t be distracted by lazy reporting from a blogger uninterested in the facts.”
Fallout likely limited
While the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility could theoretically review the matter, experts say any sanction is unlikely.
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James’s defense attorneys may cite the exchange to question Halligan’s judgment, but experts say it offers no substantive basis to challenge the prosecution. They point to Halligan’s unwillingness to divulge any specific information about grand jury testimony.
James is expected to exhaust all of her legal options in an attempt to dismiss the case against her, in which she has vehemently denied wrongdoing. She will make her first appearance in federal court on Friday in Norfolk, Virginia, where she is expected to plead not guilty.