FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Bar backtracked Friday on 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 who was named to the job by President Donald Trump but was later found to have been unlawfully appointed.
A letter last month from a bar association representative to a nonpartisan watchdog group that had requested an ethics inquiry into Halligan over her conduct at the Justice Department said there was an “investigation pending.” Jennifer Krell Davis, a spokesperson for the Florida Bar, also said in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday that there was an “open file” on Halligan 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 Halligan. “There is no such pending Bar investigation” of Halligan.
She said the Florida Bar had received a complaint and was monitoring the “ongoing legal proceedings underlying the complaint,” but did not explain the conflicting statements on the existence of an investigation.
The complaint from the Campaign for Accountability centers on Halligan’s brief but turbulent tenure as acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, historically one of the Justice Department’s most elite prosecution offices. A former White House aide under Trump with no prosecutorial experience, Halligan pursued cases against a pair of the president's political appointees but resigned in January as multiple judges questioned the legitimacy of her appointment and cast doubt on her ability to remain in the job legally.
The nonprofit watchdog had requested a bar inquiry into whether Halligan had violated the rules of professional conduct. The complaint cited, among other things, Halligan's handling of a case against former FBI Director James Comey and the fact that she continued to hold herself out as acting U.S. attorney even after a judge concluded that her appointment violated rules governing the selection of federal prosecutors.
The organization posted on its website a letter dated Feb. 4 in which a Florida Bar representative told the group, “We are aware of these developments and have been monitoring them closely. We already have an investigation pending.”
On Friday, Michelle Kuppersmith, the executive director of the Campaign of Accountability, said the Bar had not told the organization that its earlier assertion was erroneous. She said it was “hard to reconcile” the Bar's latest statement with the earlier letter.
“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.
Bob Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University and member of the Florida Bar, said the most likely reason for the reversal is that the initial confirmation of the investigation was unauthorized. That type of information isn’t normally made public until after a grievance committee makes an actual finding to move forward, he said. The reason is to prevent a baseless accusation from damaging someone’s reputation.
“I think somebody at the Florida Bar probably jumped the gun,” Jarvis said.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on the social platform X on Friday that Halligan “not only did nothing wrong — she did a great job.”
“The Florida Bar ‘investigation’ of Lindsey Halligan is totally fake news,” she added.
Halligan did not immediately respond to several email requests for comment about the investigation.
Halligan, who had served as one of Trump’s attorneys but had no 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 Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, another longtime Trump foe.
Halligan secured indictments against Comey and James but quickly ran into difficulty as lawyers for Comey raised questions about 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.
The Comey and James prosecutions were subsequently dismissed following a challenge by defense lawyers to Halligan's appointment.
Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writer David Fischer contributed from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
FILE - Lindsey Halligan speaks as President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
