Florida Bar walks back statement on investigation into Halligan, now says there is none

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Bar on Friday walked back what it said was an erroneous earlier statement its representatives had made indicating that it had an open investigation into Lindsey Halligan, a former top federal prosecutor in Virginia.

A letter from a bar association representative to an advocacy group that had requested an inquiry into Halligan said that there was an “investigation pending” in response to the group’s complaint.

Jennifer Krell Davis, a spokeswoman for the Florida Bar, also said Thursday that there was an “open file” but declined to comment further “as active Florida discipline cases are confidential.”

On Friday, however, Davis issued a new statement saying, “The Florida Bar wrote a letter to the complainant erroneously stating that there is a pending Bar investigation of member Lindsay Halligan. There is no such pending Bar investigation of Lindsay Halligan.”

She said the Florida Bar had received a complaint and was monitoring the “ongoing legal proceedings” but did not explain the discrepancy.

Halligan, a former White House aide for President Donald Trump, pursued cases against the president’s opponents but ultimately left the job after her appointment was deemed unlawful.

The Campaign for Accountability, a nonprofit watchdog that had sought the bar inquiry, published a letter on its website in which a representative of the Florida Bar confirmed that the organization had an investigation pending.

A spokesperson for the Florida Bar had told The Associated Press on Thursday that there was an open file on Halligan but declined to comment further because disciplinary cases are confidential.

On Friday, Michelle Kuppersmith, the executive director of CfA, said the Florida Bar had not directly told them that the Feb. 4 letter contained an erroneous mention of a pending investigation. She said it’s “hard to reconcile” the Bar’s latest statement.

“If there is no longer an investigation into Halligan, the question is why not, given that three judges indicated she engaged in conduct that appears to violate ethics rules,” Kuppersmith said in a statement.

Halligan did not immediately respond to several email requests for comment about the investigation.

The complaint centers on Halligan’s brief but turbulent time as the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, historically one of the Justice Department’s most elite and prestigious prosecution offices.

Halligan, who had served as one of Trump’s attorneys but had no prior experience as a federal prosecutor, was installed in September after the Trump administration effectively forced out her predecessor, Erik Siebert, amid pressure to bring charges against a pair of Trump’s political opponents: former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Halligan secured both indictments but ran into difficulty right away as lawyers for Comey raised questions about a series of what they said were irregularities in the grand jury presentation of the case, including legal and factual errors that tainted the process. A judge in November scolded Halligan for “fundamental misstatements of the law,” including what he said was her suggestion to the grand jury that Comey did not have a Fifth Amendment right to not testify in the case.

A different judge subsequently dismissed both the Comey and James prosecutions after concluding that Halligan’s appointment by the Justice Department had been unlawful. Halligan left the position in January.

The complaint rehashes that chronology and also suggests that Halligan may have violated rules of professional conduct by continuing to hold herself out in court filings as acting U.S. attorney for the district after a judge had ruled that she was serving in the position illegally.

“In this way, Ms. Halligan appears to have issued false or misleading communications regarding herself and her services,” the complaint said.

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Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writer David Fischer contributed from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Freida Frisaro And Eric Tucker, The Associated Press