It’s not every day a newly appointed U.S. attorney texts a reporter about a confidential grand jury case, then tries to declare the conversation off the record after the fact. But that’s exactly what Trump’s Lindsey Halligan did, according to journalist Anna Bower, setting off a political and legal storm that MSNBC’s Morning Joe panel says could derail the Trump administration’s so-called “campaign of retribution.”
Bower published screenshots of a text exchange Halligan allegedly initiated about the federal prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James. In the messages, Halligan confirmed details tied to grand jury testimony on alleged mortgage fraud, then abruptly demanded the conversation be considered private after she had already provided the information.
By Tuesday morning, the fallout had made its way to cable news. On Morning Joe, co-host Jonathan Lemire called the episode “another example of the administration being just entirely too online.” He added, “Responding to social media posts from a reporter that the interim U.S. attorney barely knew, potentially revealing things that might not be well received by a judge or in court.”
New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay was even more scathing, calling Halligan’s conduct “disturbing” and “embarrassing.” “It tells us something about the kind of process that is at work,” she said. “We’ve gotten a look behind the scenes at a prosecution that is clearly politically motivated, clearly a campaign of retribution. And what better to show that than a completely out-of-the-ordinary and inappropriate outreach from Lindsey Halligan, who, by the way, is not a prosecutor by training at all.”
Gay didn’t stop there. “You even just wonder if she even knew to say, this is off the record,” she said. “I mean, amateur hour. That’s something even local officials know — that they are on the record unless they say otherwise.”
The slip-up has sparked wider questions about Halligan’s qualifications. She was tapped as interim U.S. attorney despite having little criminal trial experience, a decision critics say was politically driven. For an administration already facing accusations of using the Justice Department to settle scores, the optics are grim.
Legal experts also warn that discussing grand jury proceedings, even accidentally, can have serious consequences. Prosecutors are bound by strict confidentiality rules, and violations can lead to disciplinary action or compromise entire cases. The mishap has already fueled speculation that the prosecution of James, a frequent Trump critic, could be in jeopardy.
“This shows, again, this overarching campaign of retribution where they’re going to defy whatever norms, frankly, maybe laws, in order to carry out President Trump’s wishes,” Lemire said.
For now, the Justice Department has not commented on the text exchange, and Halligan has not denied sending the messages. But inside Washington, the episode is being viewed as a self-inflicted wound that may have undercut one of the administration’s most politically charged cases.
If the goal was to intimidate a sitting state attorney general, critics say, Halligan’s blunder might have done the opposite, galvanizing James’s allies while giving the defense a new line of attack.
“It’s probably good news for Tish James,” Gay concluded. “And bad news for anyone still pretending this is a serious, professional prosecution.”
