Halligan’s US attorney nomination appears dead on arrival in Senate

WASHINGTON (CN) — President Donald Trump’s pick to be U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia may already be doomed to fail, just hours after the White House formally nominated her to the role from which she was recently ejected.

Virginia’s Democratic senators signaled on Thursday that they would withhold their blue slip approval for Lindsey Halligan, a move that would all but ensure that the former Justice Department attorney and White House official will not receive the required Senate confirmation.

The Trump administration this week quietly submitted Halligan’s nomination to the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to paperwork obtained by Courthouse News. If confirmed, she would become the Eastern District’s permanent top prosecutor — she held the role in an acting capacity from September until November.

But Halligan’s tenure as acting U.S. attorney was a controversial one. She was appointed to the position by the Justice Department after Erik Siebert, her predecessor, resigned following his refusal to bring criminal charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey. Halligan indicted both James and Comey, but a federal judge ruled last month that she had been installed illegally and dismissed the cases.

The Justice Department has said it intends to appeal Halligan’s disqualification as U.S. attorney.

Though the White House has formally nominated her to the position, it appears that Halligan’s appointment may already be in jeopardy thanks to opposition from Virginia Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner.

“Lindsey Halligan has been kind of designated by the White House in this role for weeks and weeks now,” Kaine told Courthouse News. “She hadn’t reached out to Warner and me. I mean, it’s a fact that I find interesting.”

The Virginia Democrat did not directly answer questions about whether he planned to withhold his blue slip — a longstanding Senate tradition which allows senators to block certain judicial nominees in their home states. But he reiterated that he had not met with Halligan prior to her nomination, which he said was the norm for anyone seeking such an appointment.

“If somebody wants Senate confirmation — I want Senate confirmation, what should I do?” said Kaine. “What about reaching out to the senators of the state? This whole thing is an attempt to just end run around the Senate and end run the Judiciary Committee.”

Warner told Courthouse News that the Virginia Democrats had suggested two nominees each for the Eastern District vacancy.

“The White House counsel literally lauded us for being quick and giving them nominees that they thought were great,” he said, referring to Siebert and Todd Gilbert, Trump’s U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia who resigned in August. “They both ended up getting fired because they wouldn’t break the law.”

Warner also did not directly address withholding his blue slip but said that he and Kaine would go through the same process again, effectively leaving out Halligan. “We’re going to review and we’ll send qualified nominees,” he said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump, however, has long criticized the Senate’s blue slip process, which he sees as an unfair impediment to his judicial agenda that allows Democrats to unilaterally blockade some of his nominees.

In a post on Truth Social Thursday morning, the president said the tradition made it “impossible” to appoint “great Republican Judges and U.S. Attorneys” in states with at least one Democratic senator. “It is shocking that Republicans, under Senator Chuck G[rassley], allow this scam to continue,” he wrote.

Trump called on Senate Majority Leader John Thune to terminate the blue slip practice.

Senate Republicans have largely been resistant to the president’s monthslong call to eliminate blue slips, which many see as an effective tool for the minority to oppose nominees from the White House. Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has repeatedly defended the tradition, pointing out that nominees who do not get blue slip approval from home state senators would lack the votes to be confirmed on the Senate floor anyway.

Still, the blue slip practice has been significantly altered in recent years. Grassley himself in 2017 stopped honoring blue slips from senators seeking to block appellate court nominees. He reasoned at the time that a single senator should not be able to halt a nominee for a court whose jurisdiction covers multiple states.

The Senate has continued to honor blue slips for U.S. attorneys and federal district court nominees.

Halligan, meanwhile, will now need to answer written questions from lawmakers on the Judiciary Committee. If she dodges a blue slip challenge, the panel could vote on her nomination early next year.

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