Things are going very badly at the Justice Department, but at least it’s so rife with leaks that we’re getting details regularly.
In the latest development, ABC News reported Friday that Acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan’s presentation against New York Attorney General Letitia James before a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia it was a surprise to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Fam, is it bad when the nation’s attorney general is unaware of a high-profile prosecution of a sitting state attorney general?
Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the latter of whom, like Halligan, was one of President Donald Trump’s many former personal criminal defense attorneys, expected Halligan to pursue an indictment. However, no one told them that Halligan would present the case to the jury until she did.
Of course, that’s what you get with a DOJ taking its marching orders posts from Trump Truth Social that were supposed to be DMs. This is an absurd and untenable situation, and yet everyone must pretend that this is a normal course of action and a normal Department of Justice.
Although no one saw fit to let Bondi or Blanche know that Halligan was introducing her comically fragile At the grand jury, a low-ranking DOJ official, Mr. Weaponization Working Group himself, Ed Martin, appeared to be in the know. The American clemency lawyer had a meme message on his personal X account Thursday morning, depicting an eagle flying over the Brooklyn Bridge. As a full tool, he reposted his own message Thursday evening after the news broke. Totally cool, professional and ethical.
Just like it seems deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller might be. make all the decisions At the White House, Martin appears to have a pretty long leash at the DOJ.
He sent a threatening letter to the attorney for a now-retired FBI agent, William Aldenberg, who won a state court defamation judgment against Alex Jones in the lawsuit Sandy Hook Elementary School parents won against the conspiracy theorist. Martin’s reasoning was a little thin here, to say the least, unless you accept Jones’ theory that Aldenberg and the Sandy Hook parents were just puppets of the Deep State Democrats targeting Jones.
Related | Alex Jones and Ed Martin are a perfect match
After Jones made the letter public, Martin had to go back the next day, but this does not seem to have had any consequences for Martin.
His antics hiding outside James’ house while this bogus investigation was going on should have resulted in a bar complaint and immediate termination. Instead, a top DOJ lawyer literally stalked the target of an investigation and brought in the New York Post to document it for the ‘gram, and Martin faced no consequences.
This decision, however, could still come back to haunt the DOJ, because there’s no way James’ lawyers won’t talk about it. Even if the administration was successful in blocking the Supreme Court for Trump’s big victories, the high court cannot fill all of the DOJ’s shortcomings. When Halligan’s cases inevitably collapse, the Supreme Court cannot save her. Well, not unless they decide to remove double jeopardy for the people Trump actually wants to prosecute.
It’s not just that the DOJ no longer has a moral center, although that is undoubtedly the case. It also appears that there is no longer a functional organizational center. Trump’s favorites can put on their skis without consequences, but everyone else faces them. arbitrary dismissals Or stoppedbecause who wouldn’t?
Meanwhile, the worst, least experienced, most MAGA types will continue to run the show, filing indictments, breaking ethics rules, making threats, secure in the knowledge that nothing at all can stop them until Trump wants it to.
Hi, Pam Bondi! Enjoy the next three years of being harassed by your subordinates who know they are safe from the consequences. It should be great.
