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Lindsey Halligan’s debut as a federal prosecutor has drawn close scrutiny after a series of early errors surfaced in court filings related to the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.
Halligan, previously known as a private attorney and one of Donald Trump’s personal lawyers, assumed the role of U.S. Attorney only recently and has never prosecuted a case before.
Newsweek contacted the DOJ for comment via email outside of normal office hours on Monday.
Why It Matters
The missteps go beyond clerical slips: they test the strength and fairness of the government’s case and the credibility of the Justice Department itself.
Procedural errors can delay or weaken a prosecution, giving defense lawyers leverage to argue overreach. They also risk reinforcing criticism that this politically charged indictment—announced soon after Donald Trump publicly urged charges against political opponents—is more about pressure than law.
How Halligan recovers from these mistakes could shape not just the outcome of the Comey case but public trust in the department’s independence and competence.
What To Know
Problems in Halligan’s initial filings, including duplicate case numbers and clerical errors such as misspellings in official documents have been flagged.
A widely shared social media post on X noted she “doesn’t know the difference between a bedrock principle and a bedrock ‘principal’.”
The difference between the two is about word meaning—and in legal writing, it’s important:
- Principle (with “le” at the end) means a fundamental truth, rule, or concept.
Example: “Due process is a bedrock principle of American law.” - Principal (with “al” at the end) means a leader or main person (like a school principal) or can mean “main” or “primary.”
Example: “The principal reason for dismissal was lack of evidence.”
So “bedrock principle” is correct when you mean a foundational idea or standard. “Bedrock principal” would incorrectly suggest a foundational person or primary figure, which doesn’t make sense in legal filings.
While U.S. Magistrate Judge Vaala was also described on X September 28, 2025, as “trying to untangle Lindsey Halligan’s first adventure in indicting someone.”
Some social media commentary veered into personal territory—mentioning Halligan’s past role as Donald Trump’s lawyer—but the concerns raised publicly are framed around prosecutorial competence and case management.
Questions about Halligan’s preparedness intensified when The Washington Post reported she “presented the Comey indictment all by herself to the grand jury,” citing people familiar with the matter.
Legal Debate Over The Charges
The case accuses Comey of misleading investigators about authorizing leaks during his tenure at the FBI.
The prosecution’s path will not be straightforward. To convict under 18 U.S.C. §1001(a) (2), prosecutors must prove the statements were false, that Comey knew they were false when made, and that they were material to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s inquiry. Proving intent—showing deliberate deception rather than mistake or faulty memory—has historically been difficult with senior officials and complex testimony.
And the legal theory behind the indictment is contested, including by some who have criticized Comey previously.
Fox News legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy said on Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street that the charges appear weak. “Well, I don’t think there’s a case,” McCarthy told Bartiromo on September 26.
He said the indictment seems “premised on something that’s not true, which is that [Andrew] McCabe said that Comey authorized him to leak to the Wall Street Journal. … McCabe said that he directed the leak, and he told Comey about it after the fact. So, it’s true that Comey never authorized it in the sense of OK’ing it before it happened. So, I don’t see how they can make that case.”
McCarthy also noted: “If you were talking about the information that was provided to the FISA court … that’s not what this case is about,” underscoring that the indictment focuses narrowly on a single disclosure.
Not The First DOJ Misstep — But Unusual At This Level
Filing mistakes are not unheard of in federal litigation, but they rarely surface repeatedly in a high-profile case led by a U.S. Attorney.
In 2017, the Justice Department briefly misspelled then–acting Attorney General Sally Yates’s name in a filing, and in 2020 a DOJ motion in the Michael Flynn case cited the wrong date for a judge’s order; both were corrected quickly and drew little attention.
Halligan, 36, the newly installed U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia—one of the most consequential federal prosecutorial offices in the country—spent most of her career in Florida insurance litigation before joining Trump’s legal team during the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation.
Court records indicate she has participated in only three federal cases prior to this appointment.
What stands out with Halligan’s early work is the combination of multiple procedural errors—including duplicate case numbers and the “principle/principal” slip — and her lack of prior prosecutorial experience while serving in one of the department’s most senior roles.
What People Are Saying
Carol Leonnig and Vaughn Hillyard added September 26, on X that “Lindsey Halligan, the newly installed U.S. Attorney who has never prosecuted a case, presented the Comey indictment all by herself to the grand jury … She may have a problem finding a prosecutor in office to work on the case.”
What Happens Next
The case now moves into pretrial motions, where Comey’s lawyers will challenge the charges and cite early filing errors. Halligan can correct those mistakes and may add experienced prosecutors, though support is uncertain.
If the case survives, discovery will test the evidence that Comey authorized leaks as political scrutiny grows. Judges often allow technical fixes, but repeated missteps could damage the prosecution’s credibility and shape views of Halligan’s leadership.
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