Trump Picks New Virgina Prosecutor After Scolding Bondi Inaction

President Donald Trump said he plans to nominate Lindsey Halligan—a White House aide spearheading the ideological review of the Smithsonian Institution—to be US attorney in Eastern Virginia, replacing a prosecutor who was forced out for not bringing fraud charges against New York’s attorney general.

Trump announced the move in a Truth Social post Saturday that suggested he’s in disagreement with Attorney General Pam Bondi over the choice. Earlier in the day, Bondi had installed conservative lawyer Maggie Cleary as acting US attorney in the crucial office in the Washington suburbs.

The announcement came as part of an unusual series of social media posts from Trump Saturday night in which he publicly scolded Bondi for not prosecuting his public enemies.

“Nothing is being done,” Trump wrote in one post, in which he referenced former FBI Director James Comey, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and New York Attorney General Letitia James. “What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.” He added, “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED.”

Trump said in the post that Bondi needs a “tough prosecutor” like Halligan “to get things moving.”

Halligan has never been a prosecutor. Starting in 2022, she was a member of Trump’s criminal defense team representing him against charges of mishandling classified documents.

She has been serving this year as a special assistant to the president and senior associate staff secretary. In that capacity, she’s been leading the administration’s oversight of Smithsonian museums, which Trump said are too “woke.”

Halligan said on Fox News last month that the federally-run museums have an “overemphasis on slavery” and need “more of an overemphasis on how far we’ve come since slavery.”

She previously worked as a Florida insurance lawyer and was twice a finalist in the Miss Colorado USA pageant. Halligan graduated from the University of Miami School of Law in 2013, according to her Florida bar profile.

Earlier Announcement

Halligan’s selection came less than 12 hours after Cleary announced her own “unexpected” appointment as acting US attorney in an email to staff obtained by Bloomberg Law.

In a May article in the Spectator World, Cleary wrote of her application to be US attorney in the Western District of Virginia and her desire to end politically weaponized investigations.

She cited her experience in 2021 of being investigated and put on leave from her job as an assistant US attorney in that district after a photo incorrectly identified her as having attended the Jan. 6 riot on the grounds of the US Capitol.

“President Trump needs attorneys in these roles who understand how to identify this behavior and end it during this administration,” Cleary wrote.

DOJ didn’t immediately respond to a question about whether Cleary will stay on as acting or become a first assistant to Halligan, who could be installed immediately as an interim leader.

The developments occurred a day after Erik Siebert resigned from his post upon being told by the Trump administration that he’d be removed for not bringing charges against James, Bloomberg News reported.

Cleary, who recently served as a deputy commonwealth’s attorney in Culpeper County, Virginia, has been outspoken in opinion articles and on social media about her Republican leanings. That’s included her criticism of a “Soros-funded” liberal prosecutor, defense of Trump during his 2024 criminal trial in New York, and attacks on Kamala Harris’s 2024 candidacy for president.

The office’s autonomy will be tested as Trump and his allies continue to insist the office criminally prosecute James, who previously led a successful civil fraud case against Trump.

Trump wrote on Truth Social early Saturday that he withdrew Siebert’s nomination for US attorney after being informed that “he received the UNUSUALLY STRONG support of the two absolutely terrible, sleazebag Democrat Senators, from the Great State of Virginia.”

Siebert, an experienced line prosecutor in the district, was first elevated to interim US attorney in January, before receiving a Trump nomination for the post that was still pending with the Senate when he stepped down Friday.

Siebert was recommended by Virginia’s two Democratic senators as part of the standard screening process for home-state lawmakers.

Cleary, in her Spectator World article, described her own experience interviewing with Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner for the neighboring Western District chief prosecutor position.

They didn’t endorse her to the White House. Trump’s eventual nominee, Todd Gilbert, who was recommended by the Democrats, survived one month as interim US attorney before he also resigned.

“During the interview with Senators Kaine and Warner, I was asked more questions about my political stance on immigration than about my own prosecution experience,” she wrote. “I was honest, and I don’t think they liked my answers.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Kaine said, “Kaine is aware of public reporting about an interim appointment in the EDVA. He is very focused on the outrageous circumstances surrounding both Erik Siebert and Todd Gilbert’s ouster and hopes that all attention will be focused on ensuring that the US Attorney’s offices in Virginia, that have enjoyed such strong reputations for decades, do not devolve into engines for political persecution.”

Cleary earned a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in 2014 and a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.